


Mary Sue (or the curse of being amazing)

by theDarkestKnight1939



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, F/F, Mary Sue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 25,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theDarkestKnight1939/pseuds/theDarkestKnight1939
Summary: ~~This is a fanfiction based on "Harry Potter", however, the author of this fanfic does not support transphobic views of the book series original creator~~Mary Sue was a highly unusual girl in many ways. First of all, she was the first transfer student in the history of Hogwarts. Second of all, she was perfect. Third of all, everyone loved her. And I mean it. EVERYONE. LOVED. HER. Unfortunately, Mary quickly learns that being amazing is not always a blessing. Sometimes it's a curse.(The story starts right after Dolores Umbridge becomes the Headmistress of Hogwarts)
Relationships: Cho Chang & Original Female Character(s), Cho Chang/Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy & Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Harry Potter & Original Female Character(s), Harry Potter/Original Female Character(s), Hermione Granger & Original Female Character(s), Hermione Granger/Original Female Character(s), Luna Lovegood & Original Female Character(s), Luna Lovegood/Original Female Character(s), Neville Longbottom & Original Female Character(s), Neville Longbottom/Original Female Character(s), Ron Weasley & Original Female Character(s), Ron Weasley/Original Female Character(s), Zacharias Smith/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 48





	1. An Unexpected Visit

"Im good at too many things!  
WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL?  
IT'S A FUCKING CURSE!"  
~ XXXbloodyrists666XXX "My Immortal"

I came out of the fireplace and saw a room that seemed to contain all of the pink in the world. The walls were covered almost entirely by portraits of cats. It took me a while to distinguish a short woman with a toad-like face wearing all pink from the rest. She was pointing a wand at me.

"What is the meaning of this!?" Asked the woman slightly shivering. "I am not going to tolerate such disobedience from any student! You just bought yourself a one-way ticket out of this school!"

"I'm a transfer student, ma'am" I whispered, frightened.

"Transfer student? There's no such thing in Hogwarts as a transfer student!"

"I was transferred here from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic." It was weird. I remember our Headmistress contacted Hogwarts before the transfer but apparently the owl didn't arrive yet.

"It doesn't make sense!" I could feel her annoyance. "Just get out of my sight! It'll take me a while to figure out what to do with you."

I slouched, my lips quivering and then I started to weep.

This changed something in the woman. Her expression softened, she lowered her wand and approached me.

"Oh, honey," she hugged me, "I think we got off on the wrong foot, haven't we?" I nodded. "My name is Dolores Umbridge and I am the Headmistress of Hogwarts. Why don't you have a seat?"

When I sat down, a cup of tea with milk and a lot of sugar appeared on the desk.

"So, what's your name?"

"Mary Sue, ma'am."

"Oh, you don't have to call me ma'am. Dolores is enough." She paused for a moment. "So, you're from Beauxbatons? Why the transfer?" 

"I... don't really know." It was the truth. I enjoyed Beauxbatons a lot but Madame Maxime said that it's of utmost importance for me to transfer to Hogwarts. And, usually, I don't question eleven feet witches. "But Madame Maxime sent a letter to you by owl explaining the situation."

"Good to know." Umbridge pondered for a moment. "I think you should have a Sorting Ceremony. Just you. I wouldn't do it for anyone else, of course." She winked at me. It was kind of unsettling.

She put a wand to her throat, mumbled a spell and said "Educational Decree Number Twenty-Nine: a new student has been transferred to our wonderful school and there is going to be a special Sorting Ceremony just for her. Attendance is mandatory."

She stood up. "I have classes right now but you can stay here until the ceremony." She pinched my cheeks. "Such a nice and pretty girl."

At first glance, Professor Umbridge seemed like a monster but that wasn't the case. I hoped that everyone would be as nice to me as she was. Well, at least I did at that moment.


	2. The Sorting Ceremony

I was sitting in a room next to the podium of the Great Hall awaiting my Sorting Ceremony. I didn't really know what it meant because the only thing I knew about Hogwarts is that it was in the United Kingdom.

I heard snippets of Dolores's speech through the door. She sounded just like when I first appeared in her fireplace, meaning not pleasant. It sounded more like a scolding session, not the beginning of a joyous ceremony. I heard the last sentence perfectly because the door had opened right before it.

"So, without further ado, Mary Sue!" Umbridge showed me the way to a chair in the middle of the teacher's podium facing a gigantic room with hundreds of students in it.

When I sat on it something heavy and soft covered my head. Then I heard a voice. In my head.

"Hmm... That's a tough one," said the voice, "I haven't had such a dilemma since Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter? The Boy Who Lived?" I thought.

"Yes, him. You know what... It's even more of a tough one."

"Wait. You're reading my thoughts? Why?"

"To determine which house you belong to. I'm the Sorting Hat." 

"Seems like an invasion of privacy." I didn't like the feeling that someone could see whatever they wanted to in my mind.

"So you are brave, daring, chivalrous. That sounds like a Gryffindor to me," said the Hat. "But you are also just, loyal and patient, which are traits of a Hufflepuff. The wit and intelligence suggest Ravenclaw and cunning and the need to be praised... Slytherin."

"So what am I?" I wanted this mind scan to be over as soon as possible.

"That's the problem..." the Sorting Hat sounded very confused, "you belong to..." the next part was shouted to the whole Great Hall, "ALL OF THEM!"

The chatter between the students was so loud it was as if they were shouting. Dolores took of the Hat from my head and shouted "SILENCE!"

The Hall was quiet. "Apparently, Mary Sue is such a talented and complex girl that something as prosaic as Houses does not concern her." Dolores put an arm around me. "Have a bed prepared for her in every dormitory. As the Hat said, she belongs to all of them." She turned to me. "Now go and sit wherever you want." She patted me on the head and returned to her seat.

I looked at the tables with horror. I didn't even know which House had which colors. I like blue the most so I chose the table with students that had blue and silver ties. I found an empty seat near a girl who wore weird tinted glasses and earrings that were definitely made from some plant and not any normal material for jewelry.


	3. The Great Feast

Suddenly, mountains of food appeared on every table. It seemed that I had everything I wanted to eat right in front of me. There were fish and chips, turkey, apple pie, muffins, hot cocoa and many more of my favorite foods.

I turned left and saw that the girl with the weird earrings had a mountain in front of her unlike anyone else's. It consisted only of pudding. The girl smiled, and when she started eating, she seemed to become unaware of anything else happening around her.

A student sitting opposite to me extended her hand and introduced herself "I'm Cho Chang, welcome to Ravenclaw."

"Thanks." I shook her hand. "So Ravenclaw is the one for smart people?"

"It's an oversimplification, but yeah, knowledge is our priority." She smiled at me and it seems that we both forgot we were shaking hands. Cho blushed and started eating, as did I.

"So, Mary, where are you from?" Cho asked.

"Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. I was a fourth-year there." This seemed to catch the attention of the weird girl on my left.

"I heard that there are many Blibbering Humdingers in this region of France." Her voice was distant and dreamy.

"I haven't heard of or seen creatures with that name," I said.

"Well of course you haven't," she didn't seem fazed by my ignorance. "Blibbering Humdingers are invisible."

"Oh, don't listen to Loony Lovegood," said Cho. It sounded like... jealousy? I never liked those calling other people names so I turned away from her and faced the girl on my left. She had, long dirty blonde hair. Her eyes were silver. She had a weird amulet on her neck. It seemed very cheap. I saw that a wand was tucked behind her left ear.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Luna," she said. "It's such a shame that you didn't know about Blibbering Humdingers before. You may have found some."

"How could I have found something invisible?"

"Blibbering Humdingers like dirigible plums. If you take some with you they approach you and ask for it."

That didn't sound right. But there was something likable about Luna. 

"What year are you?" I asked.

"Fourth." Somehow she already finished all of the pudding on the table. As I mentioned before, it was a mountain.

"So am I. You want to sit together in class?" I asked. She looked surprised.

"Well, no one sits with me in almost any class." She answered. "When we have classes with Gryffindor, Ginny sits with me. So yes." A slight smile crossed her face.

All of a sudden, Cho started screaming. "HOW DARE YOU, LOONY?! I WANT TO TALK TO HER! LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU WEIRDO." The whole Great Hall fell silent.

I didn't like it at all. "Cho," I said, "that's not a nice thing to say. You don't have a patent on talking to me."

Cho burst into tears. "Mary doesn't like me, Mary doesn't like," she repeated dozen of times under her breath. Then she stood up and ran away weeping. The chatter resumed.

After dinner, I went to the Ravenclaw dormitory and went to sleep.


	4. Divination

"What is our first class?" I asked Luna at breakfast.

"Divination," she said, coming back for a moment from her dreamworld.

"I don't remember having that at Beauxbatons." It didn't sound like something I would enjoy. There would probably be some weird witch dressed in dozens of scarves and amulets with gigantic glasses whose lessons are basically torturing all the students with terrible things that would happen to them.

"It's really interesting," said Luna. "And the professor is really nice."

I didn't know Luna that well but I kind of trusted her judgment.

We spent too much time eating and we were running late. I would have never gotten to Divination without Luna. The school was a maze that, to my knowledge at the time, didn't have any map.

The room was located on the ground floor. I expected a tower, to be honest. I opened the door to Classroom Eleven and saw... a forest. The floor was covered with moss, some boulders served as chairs but some students chose to lie down on the floor. Cho was waving at me with a lot of passion but there was only one place free next to her, so we chose boulders next to a guy in a yellow tie.

"Zacharias Smith," he extended his hand to me.

"Mary Sue," I shook his hand.

"Everyone knows who you are." I blushed. "You are the first transfer student we ever had, you know that?"

"I did not..." I didn't think it was that uncommon for students to change schools.

"You just get here and you already are almost as popular as Harry Potter." When he said the name he sounded bitter. "I hope you'll be less of an annoying prick basking in his undeserved glory." Zacharias didn't sound nice.

I didn't know how to answer that but I decided on "I hope so, too."

The uncomfortable conversation ended when a very soothing man's voice said "So, shall we begin?"

It belonged to a centaur. I thought he was an illusion to add atmosphere to the room. It was not the case.

"As I understand, we have a new student here," he said looking at us.

"Yes, professor Firenze," said Luna and pointed at me.

"My name Is Mary Sue and I was transferred here from Beauxbatons."

"That is very interesting," Firenze gazed at the ceiling and seemed to be very far away when he said that. I followed his eyes and noticed that it was full of stars. He flinched as if something hit him. "Your life is going to be turned upside down really soon."

His very calm voice sent a shiver down my spine.

"Now, let us start, shall we?"

The class was not as interesting as I thought it would be, but I really liked Firenze as a person. I didn't see what he saw in the stars but I did believe that he was honest. There was one problem, though. When we watched the stars during the class Zacharias tried to hold my hand. I quickly took it from his arm's reach which made him quite mad. All in all, we left the class quite relaxed.

When I was asking Luna what is our next class a woman's hand caught my arm. It belonged to what I imagined a Divination professor would look like.

"A CURSE, A CURSE," she said in a very raspy, almost unnatural voice. Her breath smelled like sherry. "IN FOURTEEN DAYS THE HOUSE OF HOGWARTS WILL FALL TO A CIVIL WAR AND ONLY FEW WILL REMAIN STANDING." Then she looked me straight in the eye. "YOUR END IS NEAR." I felt an urge to scream but I contained myself.

Then, all of a sudden, her demeanor changed and she looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. "Are you the student everyone is talking about?" she asked.

"Yes, professor," I answered.

"I had to see you myself. I needed to check if you have some Divination skills that this fraud who stole my job would never sense." She took my palm and started reading it. "Yes, I am certain that you have a wonderful gift. Probably as strong as mine," she smiled. "Do you have any time today? I would love to spend some time with you." 

I said that I have classes in five minutes so I have to run and joined Luna who stood a few feet away from me observing the situation.

"Professor Trelawney used to teach Divination but professor Umbridge fired her," said Luna. "Now she only lives here."

"I have to say, I don't regret having classes with Firenze instead of her."

"I like her but I think Firenze's predictions are more accurate. Now, let's hurry, the next professor doesn't like tardiness!"


	5. Defence Against the Dark Arts

I instantly recognized the door to the room where our next class was going to be. It was the first class I saw when I got here. Because of that, I wasn't surprised to see Dolores behind them.

"Come in children," she said in her high-pitched voice. After we all sat down, she cleared her throat and said: "Mary, I've been waiting to see you since breakfast." 

She smiled at me. I felt uncomfortable, again. Something just didn't seem right. I blushed.

"Oh, that's alright honey, I don't want to embarrass you. Open your textbooks on page 756," she said to the class. I looked at the page.

"So... we're not supposed to cast spells? I thought that Defence Against the Dark Arts would be practical."

"For the love of..." Dolores became furious. "I am done with you ungrateful brats! I will see you after--" Then she noticed that the person asking was me. "Oh, Mary, dearie," she smiled, "that is a fair point, isn't it?" The class nodded. "They do not practice spells because they are irresponsible. But you... Sure, you can take out your wand and cast the spells they learn without them."

Almost the whole class looked at me like I killed all their close ones. I lowered my head and tried not to cry. When I composed myself and looked at the class it was as if someone cast a spell on them. They all looked at me with concern and something that seemed like... admiration?

During the class, we learned three new spells and I succeed at all of them on the first try. Dolores was very proud of me and asked me to stay after we finished. Luna and her ginger friend who sat next to her said they would wait for me outside.

"How do you like it here, dear?" asked Dolores.

"A lot, I already found some friends."

"That's great," it didn't sound like she meant it. "Do you know that I was in Slytherin when I was a student?"

"Really?"

"Yes, it is a very good house. I think you should spend more time with them."

"I want to get to know everyone but not right away."

"Good," she smiled. "I have a proposition for you. There is this highly select group of well-behaved students called Inquisitorial Squad. Their job is to look out for unlawful behavior among the student body." That sounded a little totalitarian but Dolores did seem nice to me.

"Can I think about it?" I asked.

"Sure, dearie, there is no rush. I'm sure you will make the right decision." She escorted me to the door. We went to the Great Hall for lunch.


	6. The Army and the Squad

During lunch, I sat together with Luna and two of her friends, both from Gryffindor. Ginny was the ginger girl who sat with us in the last class and Neville was a guy a year older than us. He was short, a little chubby, and had short, blonde hair.

"What did Umbridge want with you?" asked Ginny.

"She wanted to invite me to something called Inquisition Squad." 

"Inquisitorial Squad," Ginny corrected me. "What did you say?"

"That I'll think about it."

"Good," said Neville, "that's good, right?" He looked at Ginny.

"Yeah, I think so," Ginny answered. "Should we tell her, Luna?"

"I like her," Luna said smiling at me.

"But is she trustworthy?"

"I think so."

"Luna..." It seemed that Ginny was used to such answers.

"I am trustworthy," I said. She looked at me and said: "Yes, you are trustworthy, obviously."

"So what is it all about?"

"Umbridge is evil," Ginny sighed. "She took over the school from Dumbledore because she believes in what the Ministry of Magic tells her to. And they think that Voldemort is still dead." I gasped.

"You shouldn't say You-Know-Who's name." She looked at me.

"You know, you are probably right. But back to the subject matter. Umbridge prosecutes everyone who disagrees with what Ministry says and forbids us from learning how to defend ourselves."

"That sounds terrible," I said, "but Dolores seems so nice."

"Dolores?" Neville seemed very surprised.

"Yeah. She told me to call her that," I answered. They looked very confused. "So, what do we do about this problem?"

"We already did something about it," said Ginny. "Dumbledore's Army. Called after our real Headmaster."

"What does this army do?"

"We train and we help one another. It's not an actual Army, Harry just teaches us how to defend ourselves," Ginny paused. "Do you wanna be in it?"

"Yes, join us, Mary," Luna was excited. "I like spending time with you."

"But what about this Squad?" I asked.

"Actually..." Ginny wondered for a moment. "You can be our spy! We don't have anyone on the inside because she only trust Slytherins. But you ARE a Slytherin. You could tell us what they're up to."

"Honestly, even though Dolores is nice to me, she seems a little scary. When do you meet up?"

"7 PM, Room of Requirement," Ginny started packing. "Luna will take you there. But we have to hurry, McGonagall can literally change you into a clock if you're late." We all packed up quickly and ran to the Transfiguration class.


	7. Transfiguration

When we entered the Transfiguration class, precisely on time, I noticed that the teacher is not there yet. I looked carefully for any centaurs but came up with nothing. What I didn't see was a silver tabby cat sitting on the teacher's desk.

The cat jumped off the counter and changed into a fairly tall, woman in an emerald robe.

"Mary Sue," her voice was stern.

"I was on time, I swear!" I spoke very quickly. "Please, don't change me into a clock!"

"Who told you such nonsense?" the teacher looked around, her mouth like a thin line.

"It's just something I heard."

"Fine." It didn't feel like it was fine. "My name is Minerva McGonagall and I teach Transfiguration. Did you have it in Beuxbatons?" she asked.

"Not really, I chose a different class." It's not like I wasn't good at the subject, I just liked others better.

"Mary, I have to say right now, that there is no favoritism in this room," McGonagall stressed the word 'this' as if it was the only place free of it. "If you cannot catch up you will have to find a different subject. No exceptions."

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HER LIKE THAT!" I recognized Cho's voice which came from two desks behind me. "SHE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE THAT."

McGonagall looked very surprised. I think she never experienced such an outburst from a student. "Ms. Chang, calm down, please," she said.

"NO, I WILL NOT," she screeched. "I CAN'T," her voice cracked.

"Mr. Creevey," she said to a boy sitting in her row, "If you could take Ms. Chang to Madam Pomfrey, I would appreciate it." Surprise quickly became concern.

When Cho left with the Gryffindor boy McGonagall addressed the class. "I have never seen Ms. Chang behaving in such a way, did you?" she asked. The students all shook their heads. "No, I didn't think so." 

She remembered that she had been talking to me before. "So, I will conduct a regular class and see if you are able to keep up."

I was able to keep up. More than that. Every transfiguration McGonagall threw at me I nailed on the first try. I was as surprised as she was. To me, the class was very relaxing but I could see everyone else exhausted from casting spells. Cho and Creevey didn't come back to class.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" McGonagall approached me when I was packing.

"Sure," I said.

"Who are you, really?" she asked. "We never had any transfers to Hogwarts, and, to my knowledge, you are the only student whom Umbridge treats like a person." It felt like an interrogation. "Also, your Transfiguration skills are well above any fourth-year. Your story does not make sense."

"I am a transfer student from Beuxbatons. I have never met Dolores before yesterday and I have no idea why she likes me. I haven't had Transfiguration since my second year. It's the truth."

McGonagall stared at me for a full minute, suspicion gradually fleeting from her face. "I believe you, I do," she said. "I don't care what the Sorting Hat said, you sound like a Gryffindor to me," she smiled.

I smiled back and I followed Luna to the dungeon where the Potion's class was located.


	8. Potions

The room was full of vials, boxes, and jars that filled the shelves covering the walls from top to bottom. The light was dim and came only from candles placed scarcely throughout the room.

Before we departed, Ginny had told me that the name of the Potions professor was Snape and that he hates everyone who isn't a Slytherin. He definitely didn't look like a nice person. He had very pale skin, a hooked nose, greasy long hair, and an expression of superiority.

I sat down next to Luna. 

"Wit-sharpening potion, page 237," Snaped barked and sat down behind his desk staring at us, as if trying to see into our souls.

"So, where are the ingredients stored?" I asked Luna.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape said. Ravenclaws and Slytherins looked around, looking for the Gryffindor in question. "Ms. Sue," Snape stood up, "there is no talking during Potions class. I expected that you would think you are special, however, that is not the case to me. You will find a way to brew such a simple potion on your own, won't you?"

"Ok, professor," I said, "but why did you take ten points from Gryffindor?"

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor," Snape's voice echoed through the chamber, "for questioning the teacher's authority."

Luna pointed to the ingredients cabinet with her eyes and I went to gather everything I needed. I was glad that Cho hadn't come back yet because I felt that she might have thrown herself at Snape at that moment.

After a while, Snape started looking into everyone's cauldrons. He stopped at Luna's.

"That is not the potion you were meant to brew," he said.

"It was, but some wrackspurts fell into it." 

"What now?" Snape seemed used to not understanding what Luna says.

"Wrackspurts. They're invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy. It's weird they never felt into any of your potions, because they are so common. They'll make it better, I'm sure."

"I doubt it. But if you're so sure, you wouldn't mind tasting it after you're done, would you?"

"I wish," Luna sounded disappointed, "but I'm vegan, and wrackspurts are living beings."

"Shame," Snape said with a very flat voice, "but maybe Ms. Sue would be so kind as to help you out."

I decided to trust Luna and not some mean teacher. "Sure, I would love to," I said, smiling.

"Your funeral," said Snape and went back to his desk.

There were five minutes left till the end of the class when the professor came up to our table. He scooped up a pink potion from Luna's cauldron (the one in mine was turquoise, as the book said it should) "Ms. Sue, bottoms up," he handed me the spoon.

I took a deep breath and drank the liquid. My whole body started shivering and I thought that I would faint. Thankfully, after a moment it passed.

"It's not better, as you can see, Ms. Lovegood," said Snape with satisfaction, "but you didn't kill a student, so I won't hold that against you too much. Poor," he gestured his wand and the quill on his desk wrote the grade.

"Thank you," said Luna without a hint of irony.

"Ms. Sue, what do you think about your potion?"

"I think it's good," I said.

"Care to try it?" he smirked.

I drank a spoon of the potion and felt as if it cleared my head. Snaped looked at me for a moment.

"Yes, that is a very good version of the potion. Ten points to Slytherin and Acceptable."

"Professor, I--" he interrupted me. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, again, for questioning a teacher."

Slytherins started laughing. I packed quickly, the tears started falling into my cauldron. I ran through the door. "Mary, wait!" shouted Luna and followed me to the hall.

"Why is he so mean to me?" I asked. "Everyone else here is nice and welcoming but he seems to hate me."

"That's Snape, Mary," she hugged me, "if you had gone to Slytherin at first, he would have treated you well. That's the way he is."

"But it doesn't make sense," I persisted. "Even Dolores likes me, and you all say she doesn't like anyone!"

"This thing about Umbridge is weird," she said. "Oh, that reminded me," she brightened up, "we have a DA meeting in a few hours. If Harry agrees, you will be our spy."

"That sounds really cool," I said. She smiled at me and I followed her to our dormitory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kage Sama for inspiring the exchange between Luna and Snape.


	9. Dumbledore's Army

Luna stopped in front of a wall on the seventh floor. "We're here," she said.

I knew Luna wasn't entirely normal but that was weird. "It's just a wall. There are no doors here," I said.

"Not yet," she took my hand. "You have to think that you need a place to learn how to defend yourself. It's very important that you think precisely that."

"Ok, done," I said.

She turned left, we went a few feet, then she turned back and we went another few feet, and then we did that again. I thought she was insane but when I looked at the wall there was a huge door there. She opened it and said, "Welcome to Dumbledore's Army Headquarters."

I saw a group of about thirty students. They seemed to be from all houses but Slytherin. I recognized some of them. There was Ginny, Neville, Cho and, Zacharias. The guy with a lightning-shaped scar came up to me.

"So, you're from Beuxbatons?" he asked rhetorically, "I saved one of you, French girls, from drowning last year during the Triwizard Tournament." He looked tortured. "The one where one of my friends died and Voldemort came back, though people don't believe, but I HAVE SEEN HIM." I figured that was Harry. He was... intense. He definitely needed to work through some issues. 

I tried to find a way out of this uncomfortable conversation. 

"I'm not French," I said, "I'm from England, can't you tell by my accent?" Everyone looked surprised.

"But... why weren't you at Hogwarts from the beginning?" Ginny asked.

"I... don't know."

"Who are your parents?" a ginger boy standing next to Harry asked.

"My parents died when I was very small," I answered, "I don't remember them. I've been in Beuxbatons since I can recall."

"That doesn't make sense," said a girl close to Harry. She was holding an enormous book. "You speak English perfectly but you were raised by the French? We heard Beuxbatons students and they are not as fluent as you."

"Well, it's the truth," I said forcefully. Something shifted in the girl's eyes and she nodded.

"It is technically possible," she said, "and we have no reason not to believe you, right Luna?"

"Yes, she is very nice. She even drank my potion with wrackspurts, even though Snape said it was bad," Luna said and went to talk to Ginny and Neville.

"Wrackspurts..." the girl with a book said, "I don't even wanna know." Then we shook hands. "I'm Hermione, this is Ron and that's Harry." She went on and introduced me to everyone I didn't know.

Hermione showed me around. There were a lot of books filled with charms and counter-spells, and a lot of space to practice.

"Ginny told me you are good at Defence Against the Dark Arts," she said. "Then maybe we'll start with Harry teaching you the Patronus Charm."

"You need a happy memory," Harry said to me, "that's the most important thing. You can say the incantation and gesture with the wand perfectly but if you don't have a good memory, it's all for nothing."

I couldn't think of any particular memories from before getting here so the memory I chose was the moment I was invited to the Dumbledore's Army during lunch.

"Now say 'Expecto Patronum'and move your wand, just like that. Go on," said Harry, "and don't get discouraged, if you won't manage to create a Patronus on your first try."

I focused on the memory and said "Expecto Patronum!" At first, white sparks shot from the end of my wand but they quickly turned into a creature. It was a giant dragon. Everyone was stunned. Ron patted me on the back and Luna gave me thumbs up.

"Okay," I think Harry felt like I was stealing his thunder, "so you've got that one. Maybe a duel, then?" He definitely wanted to show that he's better than me.

"Fine," I said and we placed ourselves opposite each other and prepared to fight.

"Stupefy!" shouted Harry but I chanted "Protego" at the same time. It didn't matter though, because the spell was blocked not by me, but... Zacharias and Cho.

"DON'T ATTACK MARY, SHE'S TOO PRECIOUS," screamed Cho.

"THAT'S RIGHT, POTTER," shouted Zacharias.

Then something even weirder happened. They started attacking each other.

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE HER," they both screamed and rolled on the floor, hitting each other with fists.

"STOP!" My voice echoed. Everyone fell silent. "I don't need to be saved and you behave like you're insane."

"Mary doesn't like me," they both muttered and then ran from the room.

"That's Cho's third outbreak," Ginny said to Harry. "You heard the one during the feast, everyone did, but she also snapped at McGonagall. I don't get why."

"Doesn't seem like her," Harry answered. "But she's been on edge lately." He addressed me. "A rain check on the duel?"

"Sure."

"But I heard Ginny's idea. Do you really wanna be our spy? It could be dangerous. And you'd have to spend time with them," he shivered.

"I want to help you," I said. "We have a right to learn how to protect ourselves and this will help to keep you going."

"It will", said Ron, "you're so brave, Mary." His lingering look was a little uncomfortable. Hermione stared at Ron looking at me and grunted.

"Thank you for your sacrifice," she said. "I don't envy you spending time with Malfoy."

"Who's Malfoy?" I asked.

"It's hard to explain," she answered. "It's something you need to experience yourself."


	10. Sneaking at Night

When we were heading to Ravenclaw's dormitory, Luna suddenly turned right.

"I may be wrong," I said, "but it seems that it's not the way we were going before."

"You're right, it isn't," Luna answered, "I need to do something."

"We shouldn't be here at all, from what I heard. It's eleven PM, we could get caught."

"Don't worry, I do it all the time," she took my hand and we wandered into a dark corridor. "And I can't imagine Umbridge punishing you, so we're safe." She lit her wand and lead me to through the maze that is Hogwarts.

"What do you do all the time?" I asked but I knew the answer would be too weird for me to comprehend.

"It's a surprise."

Luna was always nice to me and I really liked her, so I was curious to know what was the surprise she talked about.

She led me to a yard with a fountain in the middle and then to a corridor-like bridge that connected the school with the grounds.

"Oh, so that's where they put it," Luna jumped and took off a pair of Converse shoes hanging on a rafter. Only then I noticed that Luna walked barefoot.

"Who?" I asked. "What...? Why...?"

"Some students from my house steal my things and put them in various places throughout the castle," Luna said as if it was the most normal thing there is. "I usually wait until the end of the year and search for them but that's a nice find." She put on the sneakers and continued to go through the bridge.

"Luna," I said, "you know that what they're doing is not nice, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't mind. They don't take anything too important."

"Luna, they took all of your shoes," I started to become furious.

"And as you can see, I can manage without them for all year," she smiled. "It really shows you how much you don't need. The first year was the worst, though, because I haven't gotten used to it yet, and that was when the Basilisk was roaming the halls and petrifying everyone. Well, it turned out it meant to kill, not petrify, in the end but..."

"I'll find them and I'll show them," I said, determined.

"I cannot condone violence. But I steal some pudding from them in the Great Hall quite regularly."

"Do they notice that?" I asked.

"No, because it appears again in front of their plate."

"So what do you achieve?"

"More pudding," she grinned at the thought.

We entered the grounds and Luna led me to a wooden hut. It had a small garden where plants started to bloom.

Luna came up to the door and knocked a few times. The hut seemed to belong to a giant, bloodthirsty animal, at least the deafening barking seemed to point that way. Then, we heard rumbling and a few grunts.

"Harry, I told yeh that you shouldn' come here," said a loud, grumbling voice. "Umbridge only wait fer yeh to slip up."

Something huge attacked us. It turned out to be a boarhound. A giant man who opened the door tried to tame him.

"Fang, FANG, sit," shouted the man. He was about the size of Madame Maxime but had a huge, black beard and a long, brown coat.

The dog started licking Luna very thoroughly. She didn't seem to mind.

"Luna?" he asked, "What are yeh doin' here?"

"That's Mary," she answered a question he didn't ask, "she's a transfer student."

"From where?" Hagrid looked at me suspiciously.

"Beuxbatons," I answered. He looked at the stars dreamingly.

"So yeh know Olympe," he quickly corrected himself, "I mean, Madam Maxime."

"Yes, she's our principal."

"Was she talkin' about me? Or about our secret mission?"

"What secret mission?" he looked disappointed. I tried to cheer him up. "I wasn't her friend or anything," I said, "she was talking to me about my grades. mostly."

He blushed. "Well, I had to try, didn' I? So," he said after a moment of silence, "why are yeh here?"

"I came for some ferrets," Luna said. "For you know what."

"Aye, fer--"

"--don't say it," Luna interrupted him, "it's a surprise."

"Okay, here yeh are," Hagrid handed her five ferrets. Dead ferrets.

"Thanks, Hagrid," she smiled at him. He smiled back.

"If yeh ever wanna talk, I'm here. And take Fang fer a walk, would yeh?"

"With pleasure. Fang, let's go, boy," she petted the hound on the head and the three of us went to a very disturbing looking forest.

"It's called the Forbidden Forest," Luna explained.

"So why are we entering this forest if it's forbidden?" I asked.

"Because it's fun, Mary," she said, "because it's fun."

"And the dead ferrets?"

"You'll see," she found a stick and threw it ahead. Fang ran after it. He was very fast for his size.

I started to notice that the situation is very suspicious. A girl whom I had known for a day took me and a few dead ferrets deep into scary woods that have 'forbidden' in the name. She didn't seem normal either, which is not bad in itself, but definitely made it weirder.

"We're here," she said, pointing at a clearing.

"We're supposed to just sit here?" I asked. "We didn't bring any food..." then I got it. "Are we supposed to eat the ferrets?"

"What? No," she scoffed, "I'm vegan, remember? It's for the Thestrals."

"For what?"

"Thestrals, can't you see them?" she asked.

"No, not really." It seemed that it was another made-up, invisible creature of hers. "Is it the thing that's common in France?"

"No, Blibbering Humdingers are always invisible," she explained.

"Well, I don't see them."

"It means you haven't seen someone die."

"What? I don't understand." I didn't believe her.

"I see them because I saw my mom died," she threw a ferret into the air. It started levitating and then, suddenly, it disappeared. I heard chewing. I was wrong, then.

"I'm so sorry about your mom," I said, "how did it happen?"

We sat down on a trunk of a fallen tree and observed (at least Luna did) Thestrals eating.

"It happened when I was about nine. My mom experimented with spells and one of them got out of hand."

"I'm sorry you had to see it," I said.

"That's okay," she smiled slightly. "You have to think about the now. You can't think about the past too much because you can't change it. What happened to my mom was a tragedy but it made me see something beautiful," she pointed at the space where Thestrals were supposed to be.

"What do they look like?" I asked.

"A lot of people think they're scary but I think they're gracious. They look a lot like horses but with bat-like wings. They're heads look a little like skulls of reptiles and they're black."

"They sound... interesting," I said.

"They're very friendly. If you treat them well, you could even fly on them."

The perspective of flying on an invisible horse didn't seem that fun at that moment.

"Maybe another time?"

"Sure, they're not going anywhere."

We lay on the grass and looked at the stars.

"What about you're parents?" Luna asked. "You said they died when you were really young."

"Yes, I don't remember them. I was raised in France."

"By whom? Some family?"

I had some problems remembering ever since I came here, the past seemed like a blur with some clear moments. Like the one where Madam Maxime sent me here. I knew I couldn't go around and say that I have amnesia, so I had to improvise.

"I was raised by Madam Maxime at the school. She took me as one of her own," I said, hoping she would believe me.

"I liked her. I talked to her a few times last year."

Right, Triwizard Tournament, Harry talked about it. I didn't remember her being away for so long.

"Yes, she is great," I answered. "Professor McGonagall reminds me of her a little. Did your dad raise you?" I quickly changed the topic.

"Yes, he is a publisher of the Quibbler. It's a newspaper about things that the establishment doesn't want to talk about. You know, like Rotfang Conspiracy."

"What is--" she interrupted me.

"Aurors are working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."

"Ok..."

"That's where I got this amulet," she showed me the weird cheap piece of jewelry. "It's supposed to protect you from any curse."

I didn't have the heart to say that it's very unlikely that an amulet added to a paper would be as strong.

"I think it's time to get back," Luna said and stood up. "We need to get Fang back to Hagrid and sneak in."

"Also, from what you said we have early classes tomorrow."

"Yeah, that too," she said dismissively.

"Thank you for showing me Thestrals," I said on the way.

"It's my pleasure," she smiled. "I knew you would understand."

We came back to our dormitory exhausted and went to sleep instantly.


	11. The Box

The next day, after classes, I was meant to go to Dolores and ask her to be part of the Inquisitorial Squad. Luna and Ginny said they wanted to accompany me to her office doors but I knew it wasn't a pleasant prospect for them and politely declined. They let a sigh of relief.

I was on my way when a pair of hands caught me and pulled me into a dead-end covered in shadows. I saw two identical twins. I quickly remembered they were Ginny's brothers because they introduced themselves on Dumbledore's Army meeting.

"Fred and George," I whispered, "what are you doing?"

"Why are you whispering?" George (I think) asked.

"You pulled me into the shadows, I thought we're hiding."

"Well, we are," said Fred (probably) in a normal voice, "but you can speak normally."

"What do you want?" I asked, again.

"We didn't want to say that in the meeting because of Hermione, but we had this one idea." They grinned. "We invented this thing called Skiving Snackbox," George (I hope) showed me a box. "These are candies that make you sick," he said, proud of himself.

"Why would anyone want to eat something that makes you sick?" I asked, astounded.

"Well, from what Ginny told us you wouldn't, but the common folk? You have a Potions class and you don't want to be there, what do you do? You take a Puking Pastille and throw up into a cauldron. It doesn't cause a serious ailment, so after you get out of class you eat the other half of the candy and voila, you're cured!" They sounded like very experienced salesmen.

"Okay, fair point," I answered after thinking about it for a moment, "but, as you said, I don't need those, so what do you want from me?"

"We heard about your 'superpower'--" George (maybe?) said.

"Which is taming Umbridge," Fred continued.

"So we thought--"

"--that you could--"

"--give her these."

"The ones in this box don't have the halves with the antidote."

"We tried--"

"--but she was suspicious when we left them anonymously--"

"--and we think she'll take them for you and she would never think her sickness was caused by your gift."

Dolores didn't scare me, from what I heard she was a terrible bully and the plan sounded fun.

"Sure," I said.

"We knew you were more fun than Hermione," they said. "If you do that, you'll have our undying respect," Fred (I don't know) said. "Which is worth a lot around here," said the other one, then gave me the box, and they both left in a hurry.

I was halfway there when I heard a very memorable voice. Of someone I didn't really like.

"Ms. Sue," said Snape, "what the devil is going on here?"

"Oh, nothing, professor," I answered but it wasn't enough to deceive him.

"What do you have there?" He sounded as if he just found a way to take 100 points from Gryffindor.

"It's just a box of sweets for Dol-- Professor Umbridge for being so... accommodating."

"Interesting," Snape smirked, "may I see them?"

I had no other choice. I gave the box to Snape and he examined the contents very thoroughly, even smelled a few of the candies.

"I am familiar with some of them," Snape said, putting them all back in their place. "You are going to give them to Professor Umbridge, aren't you?"

"Yes, professor," I was becoming more and more anxious.

"They have been used a few times in my class. I wish I knew who made them." He glared at the candies ruthlessly. Then he handed me the box, said "As you were," and went in the opposite direction.

I made it to the office without any other unexpected meetings. I knocked a few times and heard a voice inside saying "All those brats can't even leave me a little time for myself!" Dolores opened the door. "What do you want?!" she almost screamed and then she saw that it was me standing on her doorstep.

"Mary, dearie!" her voice changed from nasty into sweet in a matter of seconds, "you came to visit?" She saw the box. "And you even brought a gift? I knew you were different, a really good child. Not like those others," she trembled at the thought.

She invited me inside, showed me to my chair, and then made us sweet coffee with milk.

"So," she said when she sat down, "are you just here to gossip, or is it something else?"

"Well, you asked me yesterday about joining the Inquisitorial Squad," I said, "and said that I'll think about it," I paused. "I'll be happy to do so."

She smiled and went in for a hug. "Oh, Mary, I knew you would see things my way," she behaved as if she had become a Minister of Magic. "There is a meeting in an hour in their headquarters on the seventh floor. I'll write you a letter of recommendation."

She jotted a few words on a piece of parchment and put her official wax seal on it.

"Give it to Malfoy when you get there," she handed me the scroll.

"Okay, Dolores."

"Anything else?" she asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Not really." 

She opened the box of chocolates.

"Maybe eat them after I'm gone?" I asked.

"Sure," she said and then opened the door for me.

I waited outside for a while, my ear put against the keyhole. When I heard the sound of vomiting, I started to quickly, but inconspicuously, moving away from the crime scene.


	12. The Coucil

I arrived at the room where the meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad was supposed to take place. The door seemed to be a little smaller than the other ones on its sides. I heard some muffled shouts inside which made me question my choice to join the group. Even if it's just to spy on them. When I reminded myself that I was meant to be a spy, I put my ear against the door.

"You cannot be serious! I am the Leader of the Inquisitorial Squad!" said Malfoy (at least I thought so), "who put you up to that Crabbe? You don't even know what a council IS!"

"That's not true!" someone (Crabbe?) grunted. There was a moment of silence. "Okay, I've known it for a very short time but I know what it means!"

"You shouldn't be hanging around this Ravenclaw girl, Crabbe," Malfoy said, "it's bad for you."

"I just want to impress her," he sounded embarrassed.

"Fine, do whatever you want," said Malfoy dismissively.

I decided that was the best moment to come into the room. I knocked on the door while opening it at the same time.

What I saw was a room that, I think, used to be a broom closet. A fairly big broom closet, but a broom closet nonetheless. There was no window, so there were a lot of candles all around. A few desks and chairs were brought in and were put with no rhyme or reason.

There were eight students inside, all Slytherins. Six of them were sitting on the countertops looking at the two boys in the middle of the room. One was large and very fat, with a thick neck. He had gorilla-like arms and a flat nose. The other was a slender boy with sleek white-blond hair, cold grey eyes, a pale complexion, and rather sharp, pointed features.

When they noticed me, they all tried to behave as if they were having a serious meeting, took out random books, and made faces that philosophers have in the pictures.

Malfoy recognized me. "If it isn't the famous Mary Sue," he sounded sarcastic. "My name is Draco Malfoy. I am a racist, I despise the French, Beuxbatons, and I hate three of the houses you belong to. Would you like to be my friend?*"

That was the weirdest thing anyone had ever said to me. Not for long, but it was an achievement. Even what Luna said made more sense. This person said that he hates everything about me but wants to be my friend? Well, I had a mission, and he was the leader of the Inquisitorial Squad, so having him on my side would be helpful.

"Sure," I smiled and shook his hand. I tried to free it after a moment but Malfoy held it tight. I saw one of three girls looking at me with jealousy, or maybe even anger. The handshake was over, at last, and Malfoy showed me a spot on the desk next to him. I sat there.

"So," Malfoy resumed the meeting, "as I've been saying, I was the one chosen to be the leader by Professor Umbridge which means that I am the sole leader. No talks about forming a council!"

The crowd seemed divided. Three of the students looked content with the situation and the other four looked like they had a revolution on their mind. It seemed like deciding the political system of the Squad depended on my vote.

As a firm believer in French politics, there was only one way to resolve the conflict-- a revolution!

I stood on the desk and gave an inspiring speech. "For too long, students have been pitted against each other in a struggle for power. Head boys, Prefects, House Cups! Even in an extracurricular Inquisitorial Squad we have this struggle. Why?" They looked at me, stunned by my monologue. "Because of the outdated social system which oppresses us! How long, I ask, how long, will it take us to form a democratic system of checks and balances? How long to make Hogwarts great again?!" 

They were mesmerized for a while. Then, Malfoy got up and said, "I agree with Mary. We should cooperate and create a democratic structure for our organization." He held my hand. Everyone introduced themselves and started patting me on the back for my work in establishing a groundwork for a satisfying workplace. I saw Crabbe and Goyle whispering in the corner.

"Motion to postpone the meeting until tomorrow," said Crabbe in an official voice.

"Seconded!" said Goyle visibly struggling with the word.

"Fine," sighed Malfoy, "but think about some points to discuss tomorrow. The second meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad is officially over."

When everyone started packing up, Crabbe and Goyle went up to me. "Thanks for the save, Mary, we heard that the House-elves made our favorite cupcakes and, we hope, that they haven't made it to the black market yet." They rushed to the door before I could ask what they meant by a 'black market'.


	13. Duels

I was going back to Ravenclaw's dormitory when I felt something hot in my pocket. I took it out with the edge of my robe. It was a coin that I was given on the Dumbledore's Army meeting. The numbers on it changed into today's date. I had only two hours to get to the Room of Requirement.

I decided to come back to go and get Luna before getting there. She sat in the corner of the Common Room reading her father's newspaper -- 'Quibbler'. She was so immersed in it that she didn't notice me. I cleared my throat which, finally, caught her attention.

"Oh, Mary," she said cheerfully, "I thought you had Inquisitorial Squad meeting."

"I did, but I started a revolution, so we finished earlier."

"Oh, okay," she said, totally unsurprised. I don't think anything could throw her off balance.

I leaned toward her and whispered "Do you know about the meeting?" I showed her my coin.

"Oh, I left mine in my dormitory," she said, "I forgot about it." It didn't shock me.

"Well, we have about an hour, so let's go!"

It was my second day at Hogwarts and sneaking through the castle in the dark was already my bread and butter, but I felt safer with Luna. Suddenly, two people bumped into us. I was scared that they were teachers and we would get detention, but it was Fred and George.

"Mary, our hero!" George almost yelled so I had to shush him. He continued in a whisper, "We heard Umbridge got to the hospital wing because of her unexplained 'projectile vomiting.'"

They patted me on the back and I had to shush their ridiculous reenactments of Dolores eating the Puking Pastille the rest of the way to the Room of Requirement.

We got there and saw all rest of the Army's members already inside. They gathered around Harry who, when he noticed that we're all here, straightened up, cleared his throat, and said, "I gathered you all tonight because I talked with my godfather, Sirius Black." There were some sounds of shock coming from the members. "Some of you may know him as a servant of Voldemort, but he is part of an organization called the Order of the Phoenix."

He took a deep breath. "Thanks to Mary's diversion," Weasley twins grunted, "in cooperation with Fred and George, I was able to use the fireplace in Umbridge's office, the only one connected to the Floo Network."

"It turns out that a lot has changed in this short time," he paused, as if wondering whether it's a good idea to say the news to us. "It seems that Voldemort plans something that includes Hogwarts. We don't really know what it means, or when it will happen, but just in case, we need to be focused and learn how to protect ourselves even more than now. It means that we'll be meeting every two days, and the meetings will be longer. Does anyone have a problem with that?"

When Harry was talking I noticed Cho and Zachary. All the others were looking in the direction where Harry was but they were watching me, like they were eating me with their eyes. Then I noticed Ron staring at me, not as greedily but, like them, without blinking.

After Harry finished his speech, he told us to get into pairs and have real, no holding back, duels. I instinctively walked up to Luna who was nodded encouragingly. On my way across the room, those who were staring at me before came up to me.

"Do you wanna be my duel partner," they all said, almost in sync.

"I already chose Luna, so..."

"No, you shouldn't hang around Loony, she cramps your style," Cho laughed, irritated.

"I have an idea," Ron said, "we should duel about who duels with her."

"Wait a second--" I tried to interrupt him.

"No, no, that's a great idea," the other two answered. They all took their wands out and started circling one another, me being in the center.

I dodged and got outside the fighting ground and tried to tell them to stop, but they didn't listen. It was a weird spectacle, seeing three wizards in a duel. The fighters seemed to think so too because they freezer for a few moments to decide whom to hit.

At the same moment, Cho used Rictumsempra on Zacharias, Zacharias used Expelliarmus on Cho and Ron also attacked Zacharias but with Stupefy. Zacharias only laughed once, and then passed out on the floor.

"Stop that!" yelled Harry. "Can you take it all seriously? Voldemort might attack us any day!"

They didn't listen. Ron shouted "Impedimenta" but Cho avoided it when she crouched to get the wand that fell out of her hand. She then disarmed Ron who, instead of getting his wand, attacked her more physically. Cho, seeing that, dropped her wand and they started to tussle. Cho was definitely winning and both Fred and George were needed to separate her from Ron.

"Ron, Cho, get out!" screamed Harry. "If you're not adult enough to follow instructions, you don't belong here. You can get back when you cool down. And take Zacharias with you," he added, looking at the body on the floor.

Ron and Cho lowered their head and listened to Harry. Zacharias's head hit the threshold of the door on their way out.

"I swear, I've never seen them like that," Harry sighed and told us all to continue what he told us to do.

I dueled with Luna a few times. She was very good at it but I was better. Harry said, with jealousy in his voice, that he thinks that I'm the best dueler here. After the exercises, Harry asked me to stay for a moment.

"How's your spying going?" he asked.

"I'm trying to change the Inquisitorial Squad. We already changed the system of government from a singular leader into a council that includes all of us. It's going to take longer to make every decision and maybe I can even turn this squad into something good."

"We'll see. Report to me after every DA meeting."

When I went out I saw that Luna, again, had waited for me. When we were on our way to the Dormitory she said, "You know, I just remembered, there is a Hogsmeade trip in three days." She looked me in the eyes. "Do you wanna go with me?"

"Of course I wanna go with you," I said. "You're my only friend here."

"I've never said that to anyone," Luna blushed, "but I'd share my pudding with you."


	14. The Faces of Inquisition

I couldn't wait to go to Hogsmeade but, before that, there was another meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad.

It all started with Malfoy saying "As an ex-leader of the Inquisitorial Squad, I officially open the third meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad." There was some bitterness in his voice but it disappeared when he looked at me. I thought that the best way to neutralize him was to give him a part of a figurehead.

"I think that Draco should be the head of the council," I said. "He would be the one to open and close the meetings, and moderate the discussion." He seemed to be very happy with that idea, unlike everyone else. They stared at me intensely, annoyance fleeting their eyes, and all nodded in unison.

Malfoy cleared his throat. "Are there any motions?" he said reading it from a piece of parchment. I think he also didn't know anything about councils before.

Everyone except me stared at him, puzzled.

"Do you have any idea for a law?"

"I have one," said Pansy Parkinson, "I propose that having an ugly face should be punished by subtracting points from the House. This would be called 'negative face-points'."

"Justification?"

"Aesthetic value of the school." Everybody except me clapped.

"But we have to define an ugly face," I said, trying to delay this 'law' as much as I could.

"It's definitely not yours, Mary," Malfoy answered. Everyone, including Pansy, nodded eagerly.

"But it's easy to see who's ugly and who's not," Goyle said.

"It is, and you and Crabbe would be the first to get negative face-points."

"Hey!" they both yelled, angry.

"We have to find features that are most common to Gryffindor and which we don't have," said Malfoy. "This way, when we multiply the negative points for the Houses we can calculate the House Cup results forecast."

"Multiply?" asked Goyle.

"Calculate?" Crabbe joined in.

"Draco, you're the only one here who has Arithmancy, we don't know that stuff," Pansy said.

"That's not..." Malfoy hit his head on the desk a few times, "that's not what Arithmancy is."

It turned out that math was not one of the subjects at Hogwarts. That seemed... wrong. The more time I spent at this school, the more I saw it didn't prepare students to live in the normal world.

The rest of the meeting was consumed by trying to define an ugly face. The debate was very heated, It felt like the temperature literally raised in the room. It quickly became obvious that, when it comes to faces, there weren't any features that were more visible in Gryffindor than in Slytherin.

"I've got it!" Malfoy was excited, "we've been thinking about it wrong. We shouldn't have negative face-points," he paused, "we need negative hair-points! For being ginger, you know."

When he said that I noticed that people with ginger hair were most likely to be in Gryffindor and I haven't seen any redheaded Slytherin students.

The Inquisitorial Squad lost it. I felt like I was on a Quidditch match and someone caught a Snitch. I tried to stop the 'law' from being passed, but my voice couldn't get through the noise.

"The law has passed," said Malfoy in an official voice, "Every member of the Inquisitorial Squad is authorized to subtract 5 points from a House every time they see a ginger."

"Okay, so we achieved something," Malfoy smiled meanly, "I think we deserve a break. The third meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad is officially closed."

It became clear that making this organization a force of good would be much harder than I expected. I left the room feeling defeated and the only thought that kept me happy was going to Hogsmeade with Luna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Co-created by KageSama.


	15. Hogsmeade

The day I had been waiting for came. I woke up early and prepared myself to go to Hogsmeade. You didn't need money at Hogwarts but I knew that there were some shops in the village. I searched through my modest belongings and found a few Galleons in my Beuxbatons robe's pocket.

Luna got up from her bed and went to the door.

"Good morning, Luna," I said. She didn't answer. I followed her.

Her eyes were closed as she went from the Common Room to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and came back to bed. I had been talking to her the entire time and there was no reaction.

I thought she was angry with me but there wasn't anything to be angry about. I didn't know if our trip to Hogsmeade was still on the table. I was nervous and started to put my books in order of the classes. I heard a voice from behind me.

"Hey, you're up already?" Luna asked me in her usual way.

"Yeah..." I said.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Well, you weren't talking to me," I answered, irritated.

"Because I was asleep."

"You brushed your teeth..."

"Oh, did I?" Luna grinned, "great, I don't need to do it now."

"What is happening?" I was totally confused.

"I sleepwalk," she said showing her feet. "That's why I wear shoes to bed. When I have them, that is. I usually just wander around the castle, but maybe this time I wanted to go with you to Hogsmeade so much that I dreamed about it."

We went for breakfast in the Great Hall and right after it we joined the queue of students that was the length of the corridor. After about half an hour I saw why it took so long. Dolores stood in front of the main door with a checklist in her hand, ticking off angrily after every person went through the door. She looked like she didn't want to be there and was very gruff to everyone.

"What's that all about?" I asked, gesturing towards Dolores.

"First and second years are not allowed to go to Hogsmeade," Luna explained, "and older students need to have a permission letter from their parent or guardian."

I froze. "But I don't have any permission," I said, frantically looking around.

"Yeah, but don't be silly, it's Umbridge," she said, "you have nothing to worry about." She stressed the word 'you'.

The queue got shorter and shorter. I stood in front of Dolores who was looking down at her checklist.

"I don't have a permission letter, Dolores," I said waiting for her reaction.

"Then why are you standing in the queue you brat, wasting mine and everyone else's time!" she yelled without looking up. Then she did. I didn't know a face could show that much fury, but all of it quickly faded when she looked me in the eyes.

"Oh, Mary, dearie," her voice was so sweet that I heard some people in the queue pretending to throw up, "you are an exception, of course. I think of you as a child I never had, so I can be the one to give you permission." She skipped to the end of the list and wrote my name and a small square, which she then ticked. "Go on, dearie, and be back before dark!" she patted me on the head, and Luna and I left for Hogsmeade.

When we got there, the village was already filled with students who walked around the main street, looking at shop expositions, talking in groups, others sitting around and playing with (or eating) what they bought.

"I don't like crowds," Luna said, "I'll show you something and then we'll come back when the shops will be less crowded."

Instead of going to Hogsmeade, we went around it, until we saw a big wooden building.

"That's the Shrieking Shack," Luna said. "It was said to be the most haunted building in Britain, but when I was in second-year, it turned out it was because one of our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was a werewolf who spent every full moon there and was very loud. Harry faced him there that year."

I was speechless. Hogwarts seemed to be the most dangerous place in the world and had huge gaps in its curriculum. So even if you, somehow, survived it, you didn't even know how to count or do your taxes (I mean there must be some taxes, right?)

"So, first-year-- Basilisk, second-year-- werewolf teacher. What about third-year?"

"Oh, that one was the worst," she shivered.

"What happened?" I was ready for the worst.

"Well, there was a Triwizard tournament and your school and Durmstrang came to Hogwarts."

"Yes...?"

"And it turned out that in Durmstrang there was no pudding and they hadn't known what it was. But not for long."

"Yes...?" I said, awaiting for another huge monster to appear in the story.

"And they took a very strong liking to them."

"Luna..."

"They ate all of it!"

"Luna!"

"ALL OF IT!" She breathed heavily for a while. But then she composed herself and asked, in her normal voice, "You know what?"

"What?" I asked, a little scared of the answer.

"All this talk about pudding made me hungry, let's go!" She took my hand and led me to the village.

On the way, I saw a small teashop that looked quite romantic. There were a lot of couples there, whispering and enjoying their time with each other. You could smell the tea from afar.

"Luna, you wanna go in there?" I asked.

"Not really," she said, "it's boring and stuffy in there."

So not really into romantic stuff. Fine.

"Can't we get in for a moment?"

"Okay..." she answered reluctantly, "but quick, because they don't serve pudding there."

When we came closer, I saw the inside of the shop better. It was very cozy and almost full. At one of tea tables (all of them had only two armchairs), there was... Cho Chang. She was the only one there alone, as if waiting for someone. I had a very bad feeling about that. She turned her head as quick as lighting and I narrowly avoided her eyesight.

In the corner of my eye, I saw her waving at me vigorously but I quickly turned around, and started going away.

"You know what, I changed my mind," I said to Luna, who was relieved. I didn't dare look back and hoped that Cho wouldn't go after us.

We went to a pub called Three Broomsticks but we weren't there for long. Luna came up to the counter where stood an extremely pretty witch, Madame Rosemerta, who instantly recognized her.

"The usual," said Luna, "but for two this time. Oh, and takeaway," she added.

Rosmerta gave me a long, good look and disappeared in the back. She came back after a few minutes holding two bottles of a caramel-colored drink and two bowls with, what I guessed instantly, was pudding. Luna paid for both of us and thanked Rosmerta very deeply.

"She makes pudding just for me," Luna whispered on our way out, "I love her."

"Do you usually eat there alone?" I asked.

"Yeah, I used to spend most of my time alone." She didn't seem upset when she said that.

"I don't get why," I said, truthfully. She was awesome. Funny, smart, maybe a little absent-minded but it was cute.

"People think I'm weird," suddenly, she froze, "don't YOU think I'm weird?"

"You are," I answered after a moment, "but that's what I like about you."

"Oh," Luna looked at me but quickly turned away.

After the pub, we visited Honeydukes, a candy shop that was filled with every type of sweets I could (and could not) imagine.

There were: Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Acid Pops, Blood-flavoured lollipops, Cauldron Cakes, Chocolate Frogs, Cockroach Clusters, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Glacial Snow Flakes, Honeydukes Best Chocolate, No-Melt Ice cream, Pepper Imps, Peppermint Toads, Pumpkin Pasties, Sugar Quills, Tooth-Splintering Strongmints. Luna looked at all of them like they held answers to everything.

It seemed she bought a little of everything. I only took, a package each, of Chocolate Frogs, Tooth-Splintering Strongmints, and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Luna looked at me disapprovingly.

"What's that about with the British and candies? There are so many of them, and they're so colorful."

"You didn't have them in France?" She asked. "Even Chocolate Frogs?"

"Well, yours are whole frogs, we only have Chocolate Froglegs."

Right outside the village, there were a few tables with benches. There were quite many people there. Luna frowned at them and showed me to the lake. There were no benches by the coast but it wasn't a problem to Luna.

She took her cloak and put it on the grass the way we could both sit on it but we had to be very close to one another. I definitely didn't mind. We looked at the lake for a while. It was very serene and more romantic than the teashop.

Luna opened the bottle she got at Three Broomsticks. I did the same and drank it. It tasted like butterscotch but more nuanced.

"What's that?" I asked Luna.

"Butterbeer," she answered.

"We're drinking beer? Luna, we're fourteen."

"Aaand...?"

"...And I love Hogwarts," I smiled.

"Can I have your bottlecap?" Luna looked at it with lust in her eyes, "I want to have another pair of earrings." I gave it to her without any questions.

After that came pudding. She ate it very enthusiastically, I was much slower. Pudding tasted nice but I didn't have as much affinity for it.

"I get that pudding is delicious," I said and Luna nodded eagerly, "but why do you love it that much?"

"I told you that my mom died when I was nine," she said, "and she really liked pudding, and always shared it with me." She stopped looking at me and faced the lake. "When she died, my dad took care of me. But all the house stuff used to be my mom's job and my dad didn't know anything about it. But he knew that me and mom loved pudding, so that's the first thing he learned how to cook and I ate only pudding for at least a year."

"And it didn't become disgusting to you?" I asked. I thought that that would be an appropriate reaction to eating only one dish for a year, but in the case of Luna it was wrong.

"When I eat pudding I remember all those times in the kitchen with my mom." Luna sighed. "But even more important is that I remember how much my dad tried to be better, just for me. It makes me appreciate him more. He wanted to make my life normal again."

I didn't expect that. I put my hand around her but she didn't notice that because she was so focused on her pudding. I could have stayed there for ages, I felt so happy. Unfortunately, life isn't fair.

I heard some twigs breaking and turned around. I saw Cho quickly approaching us.

"There you are Mary, I saw you in front of Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop an hour before and I've been looking for you ever since."

"What do you want, Cho?" I asked, tired of her intrusions.

"I want to tell you something," she paused. "But I want us to be alone. Leave Loony and let's go somewhere nice."

I stood up.

"Cho, what don't you understand? I like Luna and want to spend time with her."

"I love you," she blurted out.

What the hell?!

"What the hell?!" I came up to her to finally tell her off. "WE TALKED LIKE SIX TIMES! What is wrong with you?! You've insulted my best friend quite a lot, you seem to stalk me, and you are totally unstable!"

"But I love you, I can't stop thinking about you. Without you I feel like nothing!"

"WE. DON'T. KNOW. EACH. OTHER. And listening to you makes me want it to stay that way."

"But..." she looked like I killed her family. I would've felt bad if I wasn't terrified.

"Now excuse me, I have pudding to finish." I sat beside Luna and heard Cho running away, crying.

"Where's my pudding?" I asked.

Luna said nothing and rested her head on my arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter co-created by Kage Sama


	16. The Greenhouse, Brooms and Other Weird Stuff

After Hogsmeade, I settled into a routine for the next week or so. I had a lot to do, having classes, being both in Dumbledore's Army and the Inquisitorial Squad, and spending almost all my free time with Luna.

I met a few new teachers, and they all loved me.

Professor Flitwick, a Half-goblin wizard who taught charms, was very happy with how quickly I caught up with the rest of the class. As I spent most of my time in Ravenclaw, he felt as if he was my guardian and always asked me if I needed something.

Professor Sprout, a Head of Hufflepuff House was disappointed when she met me at first. She thought that I would be the best fit for her House. But after a few lessons, she came around and even invited me to her special greenhouse one evening.

"Why is that greenhouse off-limits, Professor?" I asked.

"Oh, a lot of dangerous plants, surely you understand that I can't show them to students."

"Professor..." I said looking at one of the vines.

"Yes?" She asked, a little worried.

"You know I lived in France for a while, right?" She didn't say anything. "Don't you think I would recognize a grapevine?"

Without a word, she came up to a cupboard inside and found a bottle of something that was, without a doubt, wine.

From the greenhouse, we went to an office I hadn't seen yet. It was very tidy, full of books but also trinkets, all in a perfect order. Inside sat Professor McGonagall and another woman.

"So, Pomona, do you have it?" McGonagall asked.

"Yes, and I brought Mary."

"A student!?" the other woman asked suspiciously.

"Oh, it's not just a student, it's Mary." Professor Sprout said. The other two looked at her, unconvinced. "Besides, she's lived in France, she has wine in her veins."

They both looked at me and changed their minds.

"Sure, I want to get to know Mary. I'm Madam Hooch, but you can call me Rolanda," said the woman I didn't know. "I believe we have flying lessons tomorrow."

This didn't end well.

It turned out that those three witches had this kind of meeting every once in a while. And they were quite good at drinking wine. It also turned out that I found out one thing I wasn't amazing at.

I woke up the next day, and I didn't know how I got into my bed. It was very late and I saw Luna looking at me and smiling. My head hurt, a lot.

"What is going on?" I asked, massaging my head.

"I didn't want to wake you, we were up so late."

"What were we doing?"

"You don't remember?" I didn't

"Well..." She grinned and I felt she had absolute power over me. "Maybe I'll tell you someday."

It didn't sound like we had done anything good.

"Now quick, we have flying lessons in half an hour!"

The lesson took place on a Quidditch pitch. Madam Hooch looked like nothing happened yesterday. She came up to me and patted me on the back. I winced.

"So, this lesson will be a special one," she addressed the whole class, "We will play a Quidditch match between your Houses."

She chose me to be Ravenclaw's Seeker. I had a very rough start, spinning around without control, and almost hitting my teammates. It all changed, suddenly, when I saw the Snitch.

My whole mind cleared, I felt like something propelled me to the golden ball, with little of my own free will. I caught it right before a Hufflepuff Seeker and, suddenly, I started spinning out of control again and hit the grass pitch.

I was alright and Madam Hooch came up to me after class and said that if I caught a Snitch, hangover, on an old broom, I would make a great Seeker and that she would recommend me to Ravenclaw team.

"This Cho Chang is getting more and more sloppy every day," she said before I left.

***

During this time, I started noticing some weirdness around me. I knew Cho was obsessed with me, that wasn't new but it wasn't just her. Everywhere I was I saw people staring at me, looking as though nothing else mattered to them.

I started to dread coming to the Great Hall for meals because I could feel the eyes of everyone fixed on me. I told Luna that and she came up with going to the kitchens before it served the food, asking the house-elves for some, and eating in the Common room, just the two of us. 

But even without visiting the Great Hall, I couldn't hide forever. When I was going to my Care of Magical Creatures lesson, people sitting around the grounds all stood up at the same moment and started approaching me. I ran and hid in Hagrids Hut and after a few minutes it all came back to normal.

Even though it seemed to everyone like I was the most intelligent and wonderful student at Hogwarts, all this weirdness didn't seem to make me wonder whether there was something dangerous afoot. Perhaps it was fear that blinded me, hard to say.

Out of all the people in school, there were only two people who didn't like me that much.

Every time I met Snape, he became angrier and angrier with me. I had no idea why. I wasn't mean to him, my potions were always perfect and I never blew up my cauldron (a thing that seemed to happen a lot).

After every potion I brewed he did the same. "Ten points to Slytherin, and Acceptable." But after the first time I knew that I should have gotten Outstanding for all of my concoctions. Of course, after my first lesson, I didn't want to question what he did, as I didn't want Slytherin to win the House Cup.

The second person was... Harry. He wasn't mean to me, but he was definitely not as enthusiastic about me as the rest of the Dumbledore's Army. I think that he blamed me for the duel between Cho, Ron, and Zacharias.

But even he couldn't deny how much I have managed to change the Inquisitorial Squad.


	17. New and Improved Inquisitorial Squad

I very quickly became invaluable to the Inquisitorial Squad. My mission to make the Squad a force of good was going really well. Slowly, but well.

Unfortunately, I couldn't make them stop giving negative points to gingers. But very quickly I became the person that the Squad would ask for opinions.

"Mary, do you think that we should cancel Hufflepuff? I mean, they just exist. They are so useless!"

"No, Draco, that doesn't seem like a nice idea."

"But..."

"Look at that this way," I tried to find an argument that he would like, "if Hufflepuff no longer existed, other Houses would have to take in those students. Would you like some of them?"

"No," he shivered.

"That way, all losers can be losers together and you can forget about them," I said, disgusted with myself.

"Mary, you are so smart," he tried to make a move on me, but I had become an expert at avoiding it.

After a while, I even managed to change their behavior.

"But Malfoy said that you could curse someone instead of giving negative points," Goyle said, looking nervously at Draco. I stared at Malfoy and he smirked.

"I didn't say that." He added in a whisper, "I said you could do both."

"You know that's worse!" I said, furious.

"Okay, fine, no more curses!" He sighed.

"That's a good boy," I answered. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting."

"What kind of meeting except ours takes place this late?" Crabbe asked.

"Not important," I answered, gathered up my things and said goodbye.

On my way to the DA meeting, someone startled me. It was Trelawney. She jumped at me from behind a corner.

"Mary, is that you?" she spoke in a voice that people think that mystics use. "I have been expecting your visit for quite a while." This time, I smelled even more sherry in her breath. "It almost looks to me like you don't want to see me," her eyes, enlarged by her glasses, resembled those of a sad puppy, "but I'm sure that's not the case."

It was the case, but I didn't really want her to know that.

"Of course not," I said, "it's just getting used to classes."

"Oh, yes, true. Shame I don't have Divination with you," she winced. "I'm sure that this horseman's lessons are of no interest to you. You seem like a palm reader to me, like myself." It sounded like the highest compliment.

"Sure..." I answered.

After this answer, her face weirdly contorted. Her voice went deeper and louder. It seemed like she was furious.

"THIS WILL HAPPEN TODAY," were the only words she said this way. After that, it all came back to normal.

"We could have private lessons, nobody would know. Maybe tomorrow evening?"

"Sure," I said dismissively, "but now I have to get somewhere quickly."

"Okay, Mary, see you." She was very satisfied with my answer and went away humming while I rushed to the Room of Requirement.


	18. Suspicions

"Trelawney is so weird," I said right after I had entered the DA meeting. There were all there, except for... "Where's Luna?" I asked.

"She said that she has to do something right now and went away," Ginny answered. "It's happened before."

"What did Trelawney do?" Ron came up to me and wanted to hug me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I avoided the hug. "She said 'THIS WILL HAPPEN TONIGHT' in this very loud, low and raspy voice."

It caught Harry's attention. He came up to me, almost running, shook me by the arms, and yelled, "Are you sure?!"

Other people instantly tried to hold him off like they were trying to protect me. He let go of me and took a deep breath to calm down.

"Yes, Harry, I'm sure. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You've talked to her before, haven't you," he more said than asked.

"Yeah, on my first day."

"Did she say anything in this weird voice?"

"Now when you say that..." I focused and remembered the conversation. "Yes, she did. It kinda scared me then."

"And you ignored it?" Harry raised his voice, "and you didn't tell anyone?!"

"I thought it was a joke!" I said, "like a rite of passage. She scares students with death when they see them for the first time."

Ron stood between me and him. "She does that, doesn't she, Harry?"

"Well, yeah."

"And, if I remember correctly, you ignored her prophecy in our third year, didn't you?"

"Yes," Harry sighed, "you're right. I'm sorry, Mary." I nodded. "So what did the prophecy say?"

I tried really hard but I couldn't remember the entire prophecy.

"It was something about a curse, that Hogwarts will be at war in... two weeks, I think. Oh, and the one part stuck in my mind. 'Your end is near.' That's what made me think it was her idea of a joke."

There was a dead silence. People started to look around and becoming more and more scared. At last, everyone except Harry, said in unison, "if there is a war, we will protect you, Mary." It was supposed to reassure me, but it had done the opposite.

"So a war is going to start today?" said Harry. "But it's so late. We don't have time to train, we need to get into positions!"

The Dumbledore's Army gathered their things and prepared to patrol corridors in twos the way Harry decided after the news from the Order of the Phoenix.

I, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the first to leave the Room of Requirement. When we opened the door, we saw... Inquisitorial Squad pointing their wands at us.


	19. The Corporal Punishment

None of us didn't have our wands drawn, and if anyone had tried to do it, someone from the Squad would disarm them.

"We couldn't wait, Mary," Malfoy said. "We know you wanted that to be a surprise but when we heard you talking about a meeting today, we just couldn't wait. Infiltration was a good idea, don't get me wrong," he sneered, "but we prefer faster profits."

"What the hell, Mary?!" said Harry, "you were their spy?!"

The rest of the Dumbledore's Army shouted, "NO, SHE'S NOT! SHE COULDN'T BE!" Harry hung his head and said nothing.

They lead us, at wandpoint, to a room that I recognized as Umbridge's office. Draco knocked on the door.

"I was just going to sleep! If you do not have something so urgent that it couldn't wait even a second, I will let Filch use those torture devices he loves so much! Actually, I might still do that. Why haven't I given him permission yet?!"

The door opened. Dolores was wearing a pink nightgown with about a hundred pictures of cats on it. Her head was full of (also pink) rollers.

"It's all thanks to Mary, Headmistress," Malfoy grinned at her.

It took her a while to comprehend what was before her. Her smile was so wide that I felt that her face could explode.

"MARY! I knew you were great and you wanted to make me happy, dearie, but I couldn't imagine that you would do such an amazing thing for me." She addressed the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad in a colder voice, "take them all to the Great Hall, I'm going to join you in a moment."

On our way, we heard Dolores's voice, amplified by a spell. "There is a monster in the dungeons. All teachers are asked to deal with it, while all students are asked to get to the Great Hall, for security reasons."

We were put in the staff room and heard sounds of people coming in. Then Dolores came into our room through the back door, happier than I had ever thought she could be. She gestured to the door and said, "Out!"

We were standing on the teacher's podium facing the whole student body.

"SO THAT'S HOW YOU REPAY ME?!" Dolores shouted, seemingly as loud as with a voice amplifying charm, "A SECRET TEAM TO OVERTHROW ME?! YOU UNGRATEFUL BRATS! BUT NOW, THERE IS NO ONE TO PROTECT YOU!" she needed to catch her breath, "THERE IS NO MONSTER! I MADE FILCH LOCK ALL YOUR TEACHERS UP! THE TREACHEROUS LOT, NEVER ACCEPTING MY AUTHORITY! I THINK IT'S TIME FOR... PUNISHMENT!"

She cleared her throat. "But first, I have to thank the Inquisitorial Squad, and especially Mary Sue, for being of great assistance in discovering the conspiracy."

The Dumbledore's Army shouted in unison, "THAT IS NOT TRUE, MARY IS WITH US!"

"No, she isn't," Crabbe said proudly. "She betrayed you."

"HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT MARY BETRAYED US," Cho screamed on top of her lungs, "YOU... YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" 

She threw herself at Crabbe with such a force that he fell off the podium and flew over to the floor and hit the Slytherin table. His head made a weird crunch. The Slytherins who were near him started screaming. He limply leaned forward and people on the podium could see the back of his head. There was a huge hole there and the edge of the table was all bloody and there were chunks of something pink. It was as if time had stopped.

Crabbe was dead.


	20. Bargaining

The Slytherins stared at the back of Crabbe's head. I could feel the rage building up in them. All of them turned their heads and looked at Cho. They stood up, at the same time, and pointed their wands at her. 

She was a bad person, without a doubt, she stalked me, insulted Luna, but it still didn't seem fair for the whole House to attack her. I couldn't let them execute her. She needed a trial.

I stood in front of her, my arms spread, and said, "Stop!" 

It seemed to work. They froze. The rage went away from their eyes, and they seem unfocused. The tension left their bodies.

"Yeah, leave Cho alone, assholes," shouted Ron. "And, as you can see, Mary is with us! So bugger off, you lot!"

The result of my actions disappeared as quickly as it appeared. The Inquisitorial Squad pointed their wands at the whole Dumbledore's Army and so did the rest of their House. This seemed like a situation that DA couldn't get out of. "Mary," all of the Slytherins said at the same time, "you are with us, aren't you?"

This situation was becoming more and more absurd. It seemed it wasn't Crabbe they were angry about, it was that I seemed to be supporting the Dumbledore's Army.

Someone held my arm. I turned around and it was Dolores. "I know you are with us, sweetie," the grip tightened, "after all, you are not one of those terrible troublemakers, are you? I saw greatness in you and I'm sure I wasn't wrong."

I tried to explain but my voice drowned in DA's shouts, "YOU ARE WRONG, MARY IS OUR SAVIOUR. MARY IS OUR QUEEN." The only member who was silent was Harry. He stared at me, angry and confused. I didn't know if it was about his ego or he also noticed the weirdness around us.

The rest of the Great Hall observed what was happening very carefully and in silence. I couldn't guess what they were thinking. I was just happy that they seemed to behave normally.

I didn't know what to do. All of this seemed to be connected with me but I didn't know what was that all about. It didn't make sense. Yes, I was popular, I would never deny it. But this seemed more like an obsession. And I've only been here for two weeks!

"DON'T HURT MY FRIENDS," I shouted. Slytherins didn't seem fazed by my exclamation but there was an unforeseen effect of my shouting.

Gryffindor table stood up and pointed some of their wands at the podium and the rest at the Slytherin table. "MARY IS OURS," they shouted. The odds were even now. It seemed impossible to avoid bloodshed. I couldn't support anyone because the other side would start a fight but if I was silent, I thought they would battle anyway.

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT," I screamed, "I'M NOT WORTH IT!"

The whole Great Hall answered me, "YES YOU ARE."

I expected that it would fail, but I had to try. I thought about something else. "NO, I'M NOT. IF YOU FIGHT, I WON'T LIKE YOU!"

This seemed to have worked. At least for a moment, all those with wands in hands lowered them and I could hear some of the students whispering "She doesn't like us, she doesn't like us" under their breath. I sighed with relief. I could use my popularity which started all of this to stop this.

Then, something changed at the Slytherin table. They returned to dueling positions and said in unison, "WE KNOW WHY MARY DOESN'T LIKE US, IT'S THAT THERE ARE MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS AMONG US!"

The same thing happened at the Gryffindor table, "WE KNOW WHY MARY DOESN'T LIKE US, IT'S THAT THERE ARE RACIST SLYTHERINS HERE."

Then all of them said, "WHEN WE GET RID OF YOU, MARY WILL LIKE US AGAIN!"

Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were still sitting and silent staring at me. At least they understood what I meant.

"No I won't," I said in a normal voice, "I don't like you because you want to fight yourselves. You should all work together, get rid of Umbridge, save your school."

They all thought about what I said. I heard Dolores whimper behind me and mutter "I'm sure she didn't mean that. She likes me, I'm like a mother to her."

The answer of Slytherins and Gryffindors was, "WELL, IN THAT CASE, WE WILL HAVE TO CONVINCE YOU TO LIKE US AFTER WE GET RID OF THEM!"

The silence that fell after that was full of tension. Everyone was standing still for a precious moment, and then... all hell broke loose.


	21. Battle of the Great Hall

The first ones to attack were the Slytherins. Their wands, all pointed at the Gryffindor table exploded in all colors of the rainbow. I even saw some flashes of green light.

The other side of the Great Hall was only moments behind and their volley was almost as colorful as Slytherins (except for green).

Some of the curses and charms collided with one another in the middle of the room and caused explosions that seemed to be relatively harmless to Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws sitting in the line of fire, who smartly hid under their tables.

There was only a moment between one attack and another, but I could see that there were more casualties on the side of Gryffindor. Some simply lay on the benches or the stone floor (probably due to Petrificus Totalus), but others were screaming in agony. From the podium, I could see some blood gashing out of magically inflicted wounds.

In comparison, most Slytherins seemed to be Confounded or disarmed. Those with no wands dropped on the floor and started vigorously looking for their weapons. Inquisitorial Squad wasn't targetted at all, I think because Gryffindors were afraid that they would hit us on accident.

When spells started to fly around, it was easy to see that most of the Gryffindors were unable to fight. Some tried protective spells, but a lot of them were easily broken. It seemed, at first, that all Gryffindors were down. Slytherins were not without casualties, but they definitely won this fight. They all started to chant "Mary is out Queen" and "Slytherin is the best" very loudly, and, surprisingly, harmoniously.

Fortunately, at least for Gryffindors, this caused all Slytherins to be easily distracted. They forgot that they were not the only ones there. Harry nodded at the Dumbledore's Army and they all understood what he meant.

The Inquisitorial Squad was roughly outnumbered three to one, so with them not pointing their wands at us and not facing us, it wasn't hard to grab both wands belonging to the DA and disarming the Squad from their wands. We also kicked them off the podium and they fell on the floor with a bang.

This was "a little" problematic because it immediately caught the attention of Slytherins who were busy chanting and dancing, unaware of anything happening around them. They all pointed the wands at the podium and started to shout their spells. I thought we were done for. Even though half of the House was unarmed or injured we were still outnumbered.

Some of the DA winced, waiting to be hit with curses, others tried to duck behind the teachers' table, but the rest, including Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville were standing tall and ready to come out fighting.

Fortunately for us, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables suddenly stood up and shouted at the Slytherins "LEAVE MARY ALONE!" and attack them savagely. It seemed that there were maybe a dozen Slytherins left standing. They froze for a beat and then screamed "RETREAT AND REGROUP" and started heading for the exit of the Great Hall, narrowly dodging the spells cast at them.

I was focused on what was happening before me but something else caught my eye. There was a blur of pink on my right. I turned quickly away from the fight and saw Dolores jumping over the teachers' table and stumbling over it. She sprinted towards the door through which she led us to the Great Hall with stamina I didn't expect she had. I tried to catch up with her, but she was going through the door when I was halfway there.

"Dolores!" I said but at that moment a cacophony of noise must have drowned out my voice so as she didn't hear me, and slammed the door shut. I could see a flash of light shimmering through the crack under the door. I tried to open it but it was closed and even "Alohomora" didn't work.

When I turned around, I saw the enormous door of the Great Hall opening and Slytherins escaping through it chased by Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and the remainder of Gryffindors.


	22. Regrouping

The Dumbledore's Army looked at the chase from the podium and shot spells at the Slytherins escaping. Unfortunately they forgot about something but not for too long. I was the first one to notice. Still, it was still too late.

Apparently, the Inquisitorial Squad crawled to their table unnoticed and ransacked their fellow students to "borrow" their wands. In hindsight, the DA should have used a Stunning charm and not just physically shove them off the podium. I only managed to shout "the Squad!" but their reactions were too slow. I hit one of the Squad's members with Stupefy but the rest attacked the unsuspecting group. All of the spells were in the form of green light. Six members of the DA fell down like puppets with their strings cut.

The DA roared and started casting spells at the Squad with incredible speed. They didn't strike back or use defense spells. They went over to the Ravenclaw table and hid themselves there. It shielded them from the DA fury pretty well. I joined the attack and even miraculously hit one of them.

There is this saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." It matches the situation perfectly. When the rage of the DA was focused on the Ravenclaw table, Malfoy was crawling under the Slytherin table and reviving the Slytherins who sneaked out of the Great Hall one by one.

It was a stroke of luck that I noticed one of them escaping and hit them with Stupefy. When I looked at the Slytherin table it seemed that most of the students were already out of the Hall.  
"It's a diversion!" I said and pointed at the student I stunned. Malfoy must have heard it because the revived Slytherins instead of escaping stayed under the table.

"There's going to be more of them than us in no time," I said. "We must hide behind the teachers' table or we'll take heavy casualties."

"No, we should--" said Harry but the DA already went over the table without him. "Ugh, fine," he said. It looked as if he agreed with my plan but didn't want to do it just because I suggested it.

We jumped over the tables and being behind a cover ourselves managed not to take more casualties and even hit some more Slytherins but there were only three members of the Inquisitorial Squad left covering their exit. They tried to retreat too but we managed to Stun them.

I stood up and looked around the Great Hall.

“Clear!” I said and jumped over the table. I saw six bodies on the podium. It was Cho, her friend Marietta, Dennis Creevy, Angelina Johnson and Fred. The last two fell in such a way it looked like they were holding hands. Oh, and Zachariah was also dead.

We moved the bodies to the Gryffindor table where the rest of the DA cast countercurses on the hurt students. I thought that the Weasleys would sit around and cry for Fred but they just said, “He died for you, and we are jealous of him.”

This seemed like the final straw for Harry.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with all of you?” he screamed. “Your brother is dead!”

They shrugged and went on reviving the students.

“Mary, I need to talk to you,” Harry said and we went away from the crowd.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” The angst was pouring out of him. “The school has gone to war for you.”

“You think I like it?” I asked, “would you like people killing one another to please you?”

“No, but you had to do something! PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU!” He took out his wand and pointed it at me. That’s when the door to the Great Hall burst open.


	23. A New Ally

“What the devil is going on here?” asked Snape. He was leading a group of teachers, it seemed to me that almost all of them (it was still my first week, so I wasn’t sure).

“Stop pointing your wand at Miss Sue, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall through her teeth. “Or you will have to fight me!”

Harry lowered his wand and turned to Professor McGonagall.

“Professor, you don’t understand--” Harry started explaining.

“--Miss Sue is to be protected at all cost, Potter, don’t ever forget that. As Acting Headmistress I will take care of our most important person. You,” she told other teachers, “will help my House with their injured.”

She started walking towards me but Snape stopped her. “I think you should take care of your students Minerva. I will make sure that Potter will be punished for his awful behavior the way no other teacher could.”

McGonagall considered this for a moment and seemingly agreed with Snape.

“All right, but don’t make Miss Sue watch. At least if she doesn’t want to.”

I didn’t want to. But Snape was getting closer and closer. Harry started visibly shivering, as if he made Snape quite mad recently. When he got to us, he was whispering.

“Potter, why did you point your want at Sue?”

“All the people went to war for her. It’s all her fault.”

Snape glared at me.

“Do you have your Cloak on you?” Snape asked.

“Why are you asking?”

“Potter, do you want to be tortured by me, right here, right now, or escape?”

“Why are you helping me?” Harry asked, surprised.

“I’m considering it right now and I don’t think that’s in your interests..”

Harry thought for a beat and took out a cloak from his robes. It looked very light and almost transparent. Snape took it from him and threw it on the three of us.

I could see what was happening from under the cloak but from the teachers’ reaction, it seemed they didn’t see us.

When we noticed that our legs were not covered by the Cloak we stood behind one of the teacher’s tables.

“WHERE ARE THEY?” screamed McGonagall. “Find them!”

People started looking around, trying to capture us. If we were to open the main door, everyone would know that we were invisible and going out.

Snape took out his wand and flicked it at the door. It opened and the teachers noticed that.

“They have an Invisibility Cloak! Follow them!” McGonagall led the way.

We waited for all of the Teachers to run off in all directions before going out ourselves. We were very careful to hide our legs from the Gryffindor students’ eyes. Snape led us to an empty closet where we took the Cloak off.

“Why did we take her?” Harry looked at me, burning with anger.

“Potter, how can you be this stupid,” Snaped asked with a smirk.

“Stop insulting me!” he screamed.

“Potter, it seems that you and I are the only people who don’t think Sue is some kind amazing person who is worth dying for, aren’t we?”

“Yes!”

“Which means that we should be working together.”

Harry calmed down.

“All right, you’re right.”

“Now we can talk about a plan.” Snape Transfigurated a broom into a piece of parchment and a quill and started jotting down notes. “It’s fairly obvious that the reason for this whole chaos is Sue. Why are we impervious?”

“My scar?”

“Well, I don’t have a scar, Potter. But I do have a Death Mark and it seems fairly obvious that a plan with so many casualties could have been made by the Dark Lord. Maybe he made his servants immune.”

“But that doesn’t explain me.”

Snape looked at him like he wanted to say something to him but decided not to. “Yes, that is true. But we can agree that Sue is the source of everything, so it stands to reason that without her...”

“We need to kill her,” Harry whispered.

“WHAT?” Snape and me said at the same time.

“I don’t know what’s happening, it’s not my fault, I’m not doing anything,” I said very quickly with a pleading tone.

“Do you really want to kill her?” Snape asked, very disturbed.

“I thought that’s what you meant!” Harry started defending himself.

“We have no option to know if Sue is doing all this voluntarily, so I would rather not kill an innocent for no apparent reason,” Snape smirked. “It all started when she came here, so it may stop when she is not in our proximity.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Harry asked.

“Then we will consider the option that you seem to be so focused on.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked. “We go to Dolores’ office and use Floo Network out of here?”

“The Castle is a warzone. But I can’t lift the spells on the grounds by myself, so we have no other choice.”

“At least we have the Cloak,” Harry said and threw it on us.

“And a plan,” Snape added, looking at me like I’m a Dungbomb with a very short fuse.

“Wait,” I said, “we can’t all fit in here comfortably. Someone has to be visible.”

They stared at me. Finally, Snape said flatly, “No one can hurt you,” and I reluctantly got out from under the cloak.

“And a positive attitude with the mutual feeling of camaraderie,” I murmured as we were leaving the broom closet.


	24. Sprout

We started our quest to Umbridge’s office. I felt awkward because I couldn’t see Harry and Snape but I managed to hear their bickering.

“Potter, stop stepping on my toes!”

“That’s not my fault, you’re doing it wrong!”

We managed to get on the second floor without a problem. Unfortunately, I saw one of the teachers in the distance.

“Mary, Mary Sue, where are you?” half-mumbled, half-sung Professor Sprout. I guess she had been drinking without me.

“Hey, I think we made a mistake,” whispered Harry. “I mean everyone is looking for her, not us.”

“Potter… it pains me to agree with you, but yes, there was an error of judgment. Sue, will replace me, I have to slouch anyway.”

I started approaching their voices and Snape appeared out of nowhere.

“Oh, Mary, there you are!” Professor Sprout shouted as loudly as a mandrake. “Come here, honey, I have some wine!” She also noticed Snape. “Professor McGonagall told us to bring you to her to be punished, Severus.”

“Well, Sprout, I think this will not be an easy task for you. You know only Flitwick is better at duels than me at this school.”

“And Minerva.”

“There is no way McGonagall would EVER defeat me,” Snape snorted.

Professor Sprout looked at him menacingly and… broke into laughter. “Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that.”

“Sue, let’s go,” Snape started approaching the Professor and so did I. She started rummaging her handbag murmuring what she thought of Snape. She finally found a vial with a very small plant. She threw it on the ground between us and flicked a wand at it.

“What is it, Professor?” I asked Snape.

“Not entirely sure but it doesn’t seem--”

The plant broke the vial and started to expand rapidly.

“--dangerous.”

The plant evolved into what I can only describe as gigantic green tentacles.

“You shall not pass!” Professor’s voice boomed through the halls.

The plant looked like Devil’s Snare, so I went with my gut and used Lumos. It didn’t have any effect. Actually, the tentacles started approaching us.

“Very good, Miss Sue, I knew you were smart,” smiled Professor Sprout. “But this breed of Devil’s Snare I’ve tweaked a little bit since some first-years managed to pass them when they were guarding the Philosopher’s Stone. Or was it Sorcerer’s Stone?”

“Wait… that’s a good question,” I heard Harry’s voice from behind me, “I kind of remember it being both.”

“Who said that?” Professor Sprout perked up, the Devil’s Snares started touching me and Snape. It bound me and lifted into the air.

“Don’t hurt me!” I started crying. I thought it wouldn’t be convincing but Professor Sprout’s eyes started to tear up.

“Oh, honey, I would never hurt you,” Professor Sprout sniffed, “but you will be safer with me, restrained.”

So my plan didn’t work. I stared at Snape, asking for help with my eyes. He saw it, said “Sectumsempra”, flicked his wand and the tentacle holding me was cut as if with a very sharp knife, and so were those near it.

I managed to land gracefully on the ground and go behind Snape.

The plant didn’t like what he did. The endings of tentacles cut down by Snape’s spell started sprouting. For every cut tentacle, three new appeared. One of those took Snape’s wand, the other bound and gagged him.

“That’s not how the Devil’s Snare is supposed to behave!” I said.

“I was bored,” Professor Sprout shrugged.

I started thinking. It seems that the Devil’s Snare we’re up against is nothing like the one in textbooks. The way the Professor said that I wouldn’t be hurt implies she has control over the plant. Probably telepathic. Maybe if we defeat the Professor, the plant would return to its normal size? Seemed like a long shot, but it was the only idea I had.

“We can always take the long way,” Harry whispered in my ear, “we just have to back down the corridor for like 100 feet. I can literally see it from here.”

“Yes, but I don’t want that monstrosity coming after us,” I said very quietly. “You need to Stun Professor Sprout. She doesn’t know where you are, so she won’t be able to defend herself. I’ll draw her attention.”

“Professor,” I shouted, “do you remember that time we all drank wine together?”

“Of course, my dear, like it was yesterday.”

“Maybe we could do it now, do you have some wine on you?”

Professor squealed. “Of course, I’ll just check my handbag.”

Harry used the occasion and cast Petrificus Totalus on her. She fell on her back and I could hear glass breaking.

We waited for a beat but nothing seemed to change. Then we noticed that usually pale Snape became very purple. Also, the tentacles started slithering toward us. Apparently this telepathic communication was to restrain the Devil’s Snare from killing us.

“Accio Snape’s wand,” I said and caught the wand in the air. Then I used Sectumsempra on the tentacle holding Snape. He passed us, sprinting, and took his wand from my hand. “Let’s use that corridor,” he showed the one Harry talked about.

We managed to get there. Snape used Confringo to block the passage with the rubble from the ceiling. “It should be enough to slow it down,” he said. “But we need to keep moving. But this time I think Potter should be the one not under the Cloak. No one cares about him,” he added, very happy with that fact.

“Fine. We’ll see how long before we change up again,” he said and threw the Cloak on us.


	25. Superstitions

We went ahead of Harry and scouted the halls before I took my hand out of the Cloak’s reach and gave him a sign that everything was safe.

The school seemed relatively empty or at least we didn’t meet any students after we left the Great Hall. It seemed there weren’t many students left standing, and they were mostly outside or on the first two floors, fighting. Fighting for me, I guess.

“Hey, I thought it would be more... difficult, you know?” Harry said to break the silence. “We have a mission, to get to the monster’s lair, right? And it’s, you know, boring.”

“Potter, don’t you know that saying such things brings bad luck?” Snape scolded him.

“I don’t believe in superstitions, ‘Professor’”, Harry said condescendingly.

“Did you forget that you are a wizard, Potter?” Snape smirked. Harry flinched.

“Well, I mean...”

“I believe Dumbledore said you heard some prophecy two years ago?”

“Ok, fine!” Harry interrupted. “But prophecies are different from common si[erstitions. These never come--”

Everyone heard footsteps, coming from upstairs. A lot of footsteps.

“--true.”

“Potter, remind me to poison you in our next class.” Snape groaned.

“I deserve that,” Harry said and prepared his wand.

“Hey, there’s an oriel here,” I pointed to the left. “Let’s just avoid them.” We hid and waited.

Judging by the footsteps, about two dozen people were coming down the stairs. For some reason, I was able to deduce that they were all adults and wearing non-Hogwarts shoes. I didn’t really know why back then.

The group that approached us was wearing robes of different colors and had their wands drawn. They were led by a majestic looking black-skinned wizard running through the hall. They didn’t notice us. Well, Harry, specifically. We almost breathed the sigh of relief, Harry relaxed, but we heard a voice echoing through the castle “Hey, wait for me!”

We noticed the wizard the same moment he noticed Harry. “Oi, Potter is here!”

Harry took out his wand and used Stupefy on him. The assailant fell on his butt and passed out. The rest of the group came back and held Potter at wandpoint. Someone helped the fallen wizard up and a man with hair looking like a lion’s mane approached Harry.

“Harry Potter,” he said, “My name is Rufus Scrimgeour, Head Auror.”

Harry said nothing, only stared at him.

“Not so talkative now, are you Potter?” Scrimgeour grimaced and then addressed the black-skinned wizard, ”Kingsley, take half of the team and subdue the assailants floor by floor. I’m going to take the other half and get Potter to Umbridge’s office and get to the Minister.”

“Isn’t that... kidnapping?” the previously Stunned wizard said.

“Dawlish, you’re not being paid for talking.” Scrimgeour clearly didn’t like him. “It’s a war zone. We’re keeping him safe,” he looked at Harry. “Potter should be grateful to us.”

Before Harry could utter his witty retort I nudged him in the side and whispered, “That’s good. We can get to the fireplace safely.”

Harry tried to smile apologetically and said, “I’d really like that, please.”

Scrimgeour looked at him, surprised, but quickly composed himself and told Kingsley to rush downstairs.

We started going up. Harry was walking beside Scrimgeour, Aurors all around them. We managed to squeeze into the circle and were relatively safe. Well, we always could accidentally touch someone and be discovered, but for now, the formation was a little looser.

“So, Potter... What is going on?” Scrimgeour asked while we were scaling the stairs. “Why are the students fighting? What Umbridge said wasn’t exactly coherent.”

“Tell him it’s Umbridge’s fault,” I whispered in Harry’s ear. “A mutiny against her.”

“A lot of students were unhappy with Umbridge’s… direction.”

“Professor” Scrimgeour corrected him.

“Sure,” Harry ignored this interruption. “And some were all for it, mostly Slytherins. It all went to hell when she caught our…” Harry probably knew that saying Dumbledore’s Army would not be a wise choice, “...Defense Against the Dark Arts extracurricular group. She wanted to punish us and most students joined us.”

“So why didn’t you win right away?” Scrimgeour didn’t seem to believe him. And it kinda was the right response.

“The Slytherins played dirty. They killed...” Harry held back tears, “about a dozen students and then dispersed.”

“And they’ve been fighting since then?”

“I don’t know, I escaped right away.”

“You don’t seem like a coward to me, Potter,” Scrimgeour calmly put a wand to his neck. “Stop playing with me, boy.”

“Let’s leave Potter here,” Snape whispered in my ear, “he won’t be useful to us anyway.”

“No,” I protested strongly but quietly. “That’s not right.”

“Well, what are you going to do now? We can’t lose our advantage. We have to stay hidden and safe and get out of here for everyone’s sake.”

It was a pretty big problem. If only Scrimgeour could ignore Harry’s lies and just move on. To do what we… wanted him to.

“Imperio,” I whispered, pointing my wand at the Head Auror. He relaxed, let Harry go, and said, “Nevermind, the Minister will interrogate you. He’ll maybe even have some Veritaserum for the occasion.”

“What have you done?” Snape asked, terrified. “You’re fifteen and you’ve already used an Unforgivable Curse? That’s MORE right?”

“I did what had to be done,” I shrugged.

“It’s your first time using Imperius?”

“Yeah. Was it that clear it was?” I asked.

“No,” Snape answered, in deep thought. “It was... perfect.”


	26. Law and Order

Honestly, I expected the journey to be pretty safe after we encountered the Ministry’s employees. They were adults, trained in combat, and higher floors still seemed thoroughly empty. I thought it was unlikely anyone else would appear in the castle. Obviously, I was wrong.

After scaling the stairs we were finally on the floor where Dolores’s office was. We were only about 100 yards from the room. Even the Aurors were relaxed because they thought that we were already out of the woods. I’m pretty sure that when we saw nine adult wizards in combat formation, we all audibly gasped.

“We better sneak out of the circle, Ms Sue,” Snape murmured. “It’s going to get messy.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Who are they?‘

“The Order of the Phoenix. An organization that I... belong to.”

The Order was looking fixedly at… me? No, at Harry.

“What are you doing with my Godson?” a tall, attractive man with black hair asked.

I didn’t know how to answer and, because of that, neither did Scrimgeour. Before I could think about the answer, someone did it for me.

“We are escorting him out of the castle,” Dawlish said. “The better question, Black, is what are all those law-abiding citizens doing with a convicted murderer?”

“We are not getting into this right now,” said a plump, ginger witch who resembled all the Weasley siblings I met. “Our children are in danger and we came to help.”

Both sides stared at each other, full of hatred, evaluating whether they want and can trust the other. Harry wanted to go to the other side but the circle became too dense and he couldn’t get through it. He was trapped and so were we.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said as Scrimgeour. “Let’s just all lower our wands and relax a little.”

“But boss--”

“Silence, Dawlish!” Scrimgeour said. “Do as I say, don’t think.”

The formation became a little bit looser and both Snape and I knew that’s all that we were gonna get. I whispered in Harry’s ear that we were escaping and that we would make a disturbance for him to get out of the circle too.

I managed to squeeze through the gap quite easily but Snape...

He bumped into one of the men which caused him to cast a spell which hit us. We toppled a woman standing next to us and fell onto the floor and the Cloak was no longer covering our legs.

“What is that?” said someone from the Order. “They wanted to sneak up on us!”

Dawlish took the Cloak off of us.

“Snape?!” Both sides were very surprised. 

“But who is this poor girl?” asked someone I expected to be Mrs Weasley.

The cat was out of the bag. Everyone knew I was there, so my only choice was to talk to them.

“My name is Mary, I really need to talk to you--”

“YOU HURT MARY, YOU FUCKERS!” Mrs Weasley (?) said. “PREPARE TO DIE!”

Ok, if a part of me had been unsure that there’s something wrong with me, now I was sure. This woman didn’t even know who I am, much less was she attached to me. This kind of a response for being accidentally pushed didn’t make sense from both logical and emotional perspective.

“Please, don’t hurt anyone!” I said, helping Snape and myself up. “It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“Oh, Mary,” said Mrs Weasley, “did they threaten you to say that? Or are you too good to doubt them?”

“No! Please, just work together!” I pleaded but nothing in the Order’s expression changed. The only thing that happened was that the wands seemed even more battle-ready than they used to. I could almost see them thinking of the spells to obliterate the Ministry with.

“Now!” Snape tackled Dawlish and snatched the Cloak from him and with surprising flexibility jumped into a corridor that branched off to the left a few yards in front of our group. I did the same.

Even as I was doing that I could hear everyone saying their spells. Probably, the Ministry thought that Snape was ordering the Order to attack, and the Order might have thought that the battle cry came from Scrimgeour. Or that Snape joined them.

Right after I safely (and majestically) landed, the spells started flying around behind me. The sound was deafening but I could hear something more than spells hitting the walls or the wizards. It was a loud thud very close to me.

I turned around. On the floor, lying face down was Harry Potter. Under him, I could see a puddle of blood, becoming larger and larger. The source of it… was a hole, which had at least two inches in diameter, going straight through his torso, right where the heart should have been.

There was nothing anyone could do. Harry Potter was dead.


	27. Regrets

We were standing up, looking at Harry. Colorful splashes caused by curses and charms lit his dead body and screams of injured or dying witches and wizards were overwhelming. We couldn’t see them from where we were standing but I was sure that Harry’s godfather noticed him lying on the floor. But he didn’t do anything. He didn’t scream or run towards him. He ignored him. And it was my fault. I didn’t know how but I knew that because I am here, no one's death but mine would matter.

“Ms Sue,” Snape touched my arm, “we need to hide better and wait for them to disperse. We don’t want any more spells hitting us.” He gestured towards the classroom nearby and cast a Hover Charm on Harry. I used Alohomora and we put Harry’s body on the teacher’s desk. Only now I noticed that a large trail of blood led to exactly where we were hidden.

“I’ll clean up the blood,” I said and used a cleaning charm on the trail, starting from the desk.

“And I’ll stop the bleeding,” Snape said, with his back turned on me.

It didn’t take me long to clean up the trail perfectly. This was also a chance to see if the battle raged on. It didn’t seem it would end very quickly. Both sides were very experienced witches and wizards.

I came back to the classroom and closed the door with Colloportus. I joined Snape at the body of Harry. Snape sniffled loudly and turned his head away from me to hide his tears.

I was surprised. Snape despised Harry. Everyone knew that and I experienced his hatred when I had to travel with them. The reaction I expected was indifference or a badly hidden satisfaction.

“Are you… crying?” I asked.

“Nonsense. Why would you think that I would care about Potter to even acknowledge his death?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” I said. “To me, it doesn’t make sense why you’re sad, but you cannot hide your sadness from me.”

“What we should talk about is what you are,” he definitely tried to change subjects. “I cannot wrap my head around you, we need to know what’s wrong with you and how to use it to our advantage.”

“Wrong with me?” I asked angrily.

“Different about you. Same difference,” Snape said.

It made sense to try to understand me but I was very curious about Snape.

“Okay then,” I decided, “you’re going to tell me about you and Harry and after that, we’ll talk about me.”

“That’s absurd.” He snorted.

“We have time,” I said and sat on one of the desks and stared at him. It took me about 15 minutes to break him.

“Fine!” he said and gestured to a place beside him. He took a deep breath.

“I hated Potter. I still hate him. He was just like his father, he thought he was better than other people, smart, capable, irresistible.”

“What does his father have to do with anything?” I asked.

“He was a bad person, a bully who attacked people to get praise.”

“And it was wrong?”

“Of course it was wrong! Humiliating even! He was an asshole.”

“But you are a bully.”

Snape looked at me as if I was an idiot. Then he considered it and definitely didn’t like what he saw.

“It’s different, I’m a teacher.”

“That makes it worse!” we’ve just started and I was already fed up with him. “You have authority and you use it to bully students. Harry didn’t do that. At least to my knowledge.”

“Can I tell the whole story or not?” Snape asked, annoyed.

“Fine.”

“There was this woman, Lily Evans. I loved her, since the first day I met her, before we even got to Hogwarts. I wanted us to be together. One day Potter’s father humiliated me again and Lily… she was the only person to defend me. But I was ashamed of needing help and I… I called her a Mudblood.” He paused waiting for me to shout at him. I didn’t. “And she cut ties with me and married Potter. And I still love her, even though the last time we talked was at school and now she’s dead.”

The silence after this monologue was long and uncomfortable. Snape broke it violently.

“SO?! ANYTHING?!”

“You’re an asshole, Snape,” I shrugged. “You just couldn’t take no for an answer from Lily, your hatred for someone’s father caused you to do to him what James did to you. The only thing I can ask is: why are you sad? Why do you care?”

“He has his mother’s eyes,” he stared at the body. “Don’t you think I know everything you said right now? I hate myself. I hate myself for hating Potter. And I hate myself because I could not protect him, just like I couldn’t save Lily. I thought that maybe, one day, I could try and understand Potter. See the good everyone saw in him. But now I’ll never be able to. I fucked it up.”

I was speechless. This was not what I expected. I didn’t expect to pity him but it was involuntary. I thought about people that I would be devastated to see die. Only Luna came to mind. Where was she? The last hour or so was so intense that I only thought about our destination but Luna was somewhere in the castle. Was she struck by a Killing Curse and lying on the cold floor, just like Harry did not so long ago? Ignored, maybe even stepped on?

My mind doubted it. It didn’t seem that Luna could die. She was the strongest person I knew. But my heart suspected the worst. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Luna on the floor, with a hole where her heart was supposed to be.

“I should leave you with Harry for a while,” I said to Snape. “I think you need that. And I need some time alone too.”

He nodded. I said that I’ll be in the classroom next door. When I was out, I could hear weak sounds of Snape sniffling and murmuring something.


	28. Memories

I came back after fifteen minutes and saw Snape sitting on the desk, facing away from Harry, pondering. I sat opposite him and waited for him to speak.

“Who are you?” he asked, staring into my eyes.

“A girl? A student? A human being?”

“Well, yes, it appears to be so,” he nodded. “But there has to be something more. Let’s start with the facts:” he started counting. “1. You have been at school for two weeks, 2. Your presence has a very specific effect on almost everyone around you, 3. Except for me and Harry Potter. Do you have anything to add?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“In that case,” he stood up and started pacing the room and I was trying to match his speed, “let us think about those points.

“First of all, where are you from?”

“Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, I was transferred here.”

“That’s absurd. There have never been any transfers from a school of magic to another.”

“Well, I was the first, then,” I shrugged.

“Fine, no time to dwell on that,” he murmured. “Who was your favorite teacher?”

I didn’t know. Everything which came before Hogwarts was a blur. I knew the basics, without the details.

“I don’t know.”

“How many floors does Beauxbatons have?”

“I don’t know.”

“In which part of France is Beauxbatons?”

I said nothing.

“It seems obvious that you are not from Beauxbatons,” Snape took out his wand and pointed it at me.

“What the hell, Snape?” I took out mine and prepared to duel.

“I need to get into your mind,” he said forcefully. “You may be under the Imperius Curse or some other mind control magic. It could be the answer to all our problems.”

I didn’t like the idea of someone entering my mind. A few hours ago I would say that especially Snape, but after his confession, I felt a little safer. Most of all, I didn’t want any more people to die.

“Fine. But what you see there stays between us,” I said threateningly.

“Trust me, I can keep a secret,” he smirked. “Legillimens!”

The whole world disappeared.

***

It was a weird feeling. On one hand, I could see my memories as if I was watching a movie with me as the main character, on the other, I experienced them through my eyes and other senses.

First, there were snippets of scenes I experienced quite recently, rapidly changing before my eyes.

Harry was lying on the floor with a hole in his heart, lit by the fight.

We were facing Professor Sprout’s enhanced Devil’s Snare.

Cho pushed Crabbe off the podium and he crashed his skull into the Slytherin table.

The Inquisitorial Squad was pointing their wands at us when we were leaving the DA meeting.

After that, it all calmed down.

***

I was with Luna, going around the school at night. I thought it was the time we’d gone feed the Thestrals but something wasn’t right. I was euphoric and very hectic. We were running without a care of being discovered. I didn’t remember that.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Again?” Luna smiled. “You told me you want to see where the Basilisk came from.”

“Yeah!” I shouted excitedly, “I wanna see a big snake!”

“Shhhh!” she said. “We don’t want Filch to catch us, do we?”

“Noone will catch us!” I shouted louder, “WE ARE INVINCIBLE!”

“You are,” Luna sighed. “And drunk, not invincible.”

Oh, so that’s what we’d done that night.

“I’m not drunk!” I said in a way only drunk people could.

“Sure, sure. I’m sad that you didn’t invite me,” she said jokingly.

I took her seriously.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I took her hand. “I like you, you know?”

“I do,” she beamed.

“I like you… very much,” my drunkenness came on a little stronger. “We’ve known each other for like to weeks and I liiiiikeeeee youuuuuuuu veeeeryyyyyy muuuuuch. Hic.”

“I like you very much too,” she said and let me lean on her for balance.

“That’s good,” I stated the fact.

We reached the destination. It was the door to the girl’s bathroom. The placement for the Chamber was very concerning.

We entered the room and Luna showed me the place where the entrance supposedly was. I noticed a snake’s figure on the faucet.

“So how does it work?” I said but I could see Luna looking at me very concerned. “What’s wrong.”

“What did you say?” she asked at the same moment when a huge hole which spewed cold air appeared where the sink used to be. ”You’re… a Parseltongue!” she whispered.

I knew what it was but I didn’t know I was it, if that makes sense.

“So… whee?” I asked eloquently, didn’t wait for an answer, and half-jumped half-tripped onto the slide to the Chamber of Secrets.

My mind jumped ahead a few dozen minutes. We were inside the Chamber. The enormous statue of Slytherin towered over us. I was more interested in the bones of the Basilisk, (or big snake, as I preferred to call it).

“It’s a really big snake”

“Yes,” Luna nodded and crouched beside its skeleton. “This one looks just long enough,” she smiled.

“Big enough for what?” I asked, swaying a little.

“For a cane. I always wanted to have a cool cane made of a bone.”

It didn’t surprise me.

“I want a bone cane too!” I shouted.

Luna used magic to cut out two bones from the skeleton and gave me one. “You’re going to need it.”

I took it from her hand and hugged her. “You’re the best Luna.”

“I know,” she patted me on the back.

I could’ve spent eternity in that position but then reality somehow managed to get through the drunkenness.

“How the hell are we going to get back?”

***

The lake was beautiful but not as much as Luna sitting beside me and eating pudding. This idyllic picture was disturbed by some twigs breaking. I turned around and saw Cho quickly approaching us.

"There you are, Mary! I saw you in front of Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop an hour before and I've been looking for you ever since."

"What do you want, Cho?" I asked because I didn’t have any other choice.

"I want to tell you something," she paused. "But I want us to be alone. Leave Loony and let's go somewhere nice."

I stood up furiously.

"Cho, what don't you understand? I like Luna and want to spend time with her."

"I love you," she blurted out and started walking in my direction.

What the hell?!

"What the hell?!" I came up to her. "WE TALKED LIKE SIX TIMES! What is wrong with you?! You've insulted my best friend quite a lot, you seem to stalk me, and you are totally unstable!"

"But I love you, I can't stop thinking about you. Without you, I feel like nothing!"

"WE. DON'T. KNOW. EACH. OTHER. And listening to you makes me want it to stay that way."

"But..." she looked like I killed her family. I would've felt bad if I wasn't terrified.

"Now excuse me, I have pudding to finish." I sat beside Luna and heard Cho running away, crying.

"Where's my pudding?" I asked.

Luna said nothing and rested her head on my arm.

***

I was in a forest, or at least that’s what I thought, but then I noticed the classroom door and opened it. The peculiar Divination class closed behind me. I was asking Luna what we had next when a woman’s hand caught my arm.

"A CURSE, A CURSE," she said in a very raspy, almost unnatural voice. Her breath smelled like sherry. "IN FOURTEEN DAYS THE HOUSE OF HOGWARTS WILL FALL TO A CIVIL WAR AND ONLY FEW WILL REMAIN STANDING." Then she looked me straight in the eye. "YOUR END IS NEAR." I felt an urge to scream but I contained myself.

Then, all of a sudden, her demeanor changed and she looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. "Are you the student everyone is talking about?" she asked.

"Yes, professor," I answered.

"I had to see you myself. I needed to check if you have some Divination skills that this fraud who stole my job would never sense." She took my palm and started reading it. "Yes, I am certain that you have a wonderful gift. Probably as strong as mine," she smiled. "Do you have any time today? I would love to spend some time with you."

***

I was coming out of the fireplace into Dolores’s office. The emerald embers died out and the amount and shade of pink in the room had almost given me a headache.

"What is the meaning of this!?" she asked, slightly shivering. "I am not going to tolerate such disobedience from any student! You just bought yourself a one-way ticket out of this school!"

"I'm a transfer student, ma'am" I whispered, frightened.

"Transfer student? There's no such thing in Hogwarts as a transfer student!"

"I was transferred here from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic." It was weird. I remember our Headmistress contacted Hogwarts before the transfer but apparently the owl didn't arrive yet.

"It doesn't make sense!" she stood up angrily. "Just get out of my sight! It'll take me a while to figure out what to do with you."

I slouched, my lips quivering, and then I started to weep.

This changed something in Dolores. Her expression softened, she lowered her wand and approached me.

"Oh, honey," she hugged me, "I think we got off on the wrong foot, haven't we?" I nodded. 

"My name is Dolores Umbridge and I am the Headmistress of Hogwarts. Why don't you have a seat?"

She gave me a cup of tea with milk and a lot of sugar and sat opposite me.

"So, what's your name?"

"Mary Sue, ma'am."

"Oh, you don't have to call me ma'am. Dolores is enough." She paused. "So, you're from Beauxbatons? Why the transfer?"

"I... don't really know." It was the truth. I enjoyed Beauxbatons a lot but Madame Maxime said that it's of utmost importance for me to transfer to Hogwarts. And, usually, I don't question eleven feet witches. "But Madame Maxime sent a letter to you by owl explaining the situation."

"Good to know." Umbridge pondered for a moment. "I think you should have a Sorting Ceremony. Just you. I wouldn't do it for anyone else, of course." She winked at me. It was unsettling.

She put a wand to her throat, mumbled a spell, and said "Educational Decree Number Twenty-Nine: a new student has been transferred to our wonderful school and there is going to be a special Sorting Ceremony just for her. Attendance is mandatory."

She stood up. "I have classes right now but you can stay here until the ceremony." She pinched my cheeks. "Such a nice and pretty girl."

***

The face I was looking at was terrifying. It was pale and bald with red eyes and no nose.

The man fixed the tie of my Beuxbaton uniform and patted me on the arm.

“You know what to do,” he said in a very high voice and told a person I couldn’t see to take me to the Ministry.

“I’m counting on you Mary,” he said before I exited the room, “You don’t want to disappoint me.”

“Yes, Master,” I bowed.

***

I felt the sensation of changing memories but instead of memories, I saw flashes of different colors which gave me a headache and I felt blood coming out of my nose. Then it all stopped.

I was lying on the floor. I cleaned the blood from my nose and Snape helped me up.

“That was… a lot of information,” he said. “It’s not good, Miss Sue.”

“No shit, Snape!” I screamed at him.


	29. The Art of Deduction

After I cooled off for a while, Snape sat beside me.

“Do you still need a minute?” he asked.

“I am fine,” I said but I definitely wasn’t “fine”. I was… Lord Voldemort’s spy. But I didn’t remember that. Was he sending me subliminal messages which told me how to act and destroy everyone? Have I ever been to France? Did I have loving parents who were looking for me, and if so, do I still can retrieve my memories of them? My whole world came tumbling down. 

“Can I go back to the questions?”

“Sure, whatever,” I answered.

“We have a lot of new information but let’s stick to the statements I posed before. 1. You have been at school for two weeks, 2. Your presence has a very specific effect on almost everyone around you, 3. Except for me and Harry Potter.

“Now we can modify the first a little. You have been at this school for two weeks after being sent here by the Dark Lord.

“From what I know about memories all before the Dark Lord one were erased from your mind. They may be stored somewhere or in your subconsciousness, from where only the very best experts in the field could get them out.”

So there was hope for me after all. There was a chance I lost the memories entirely but I needed at least a sliver of possibility. The melancholy I was in faded a little.

“Seems logical,” I answered.

“Yes,” he saw that I returned to my usual self a little and carried on, “we can also suspect why he sent you. To create chaos. However, we cannot be certain why.”

“This may be a shot in the dark but maybe… to kill Harry Potter?” I proposed.

“Well, it is a very good hypothesis,” Snape said. “But I wouldn’t be so sure. In the Department of Mysteries, there is a prophecy that can only be accessed by Harry or the Dark Lord. This might be the reason, or at least one of them.” 

“That makes sense.”

“Let us go further. You have powers other people don’t possess. What are they?”

I thought about it and it was obvious. “I cause insanity.”

“Yes, but a very specific type of insanity.”

“People...” I was looking for a good word for it, “adore me?”

“Correct. It’s not so much love, it’s too possessive, greedy, and ignores what you want. A wonderful plan, if I may say so myself.”

“So you think that in order to get Potter, he brought me here to cause chaos.”

“Yes.”

“And he decided to do so now because of the Prophecy?”

“Most probably.”

I nodded.

“But there is also something else about you.”

“What do you mean?” I raised my eyebrows.

“You’re perfect.” I flinched. He was old. And he was a guy. And the hair…

“You’re not my type,” I answered strongly.

“I noticed,” he smiled knowingly. Right… He saw. “I mean that you make perfect potions, cast perfect spells on the first try.”

That was true. I cast a Patronus instantly and it was an awesome dragon. It has to count for something.

“So, you think that me being so good at everything is part of the plan?”

“I don’t see the reason why it wouldn’t.”

“Why, though? Isn’t the way people react because of me enough?”

“Perhaps one of the reasons they react in such a way is that they see your… let’s say perfection.”

My perfection causes people to kill others to possess me. This sounds like some adolescent fantasy.

“Okay, but am I really ‘perfect’? I mean, I grant you, I am good at some stuff--”

“Ms Sue,” Snape sighed “if I say you’re perfect, it means it’s an objective fact. I rarely say that anyone is competent.”

I’ve known him for two weeks but I had no doubt it wasn’t an exaggeration.

“Then our plan stays the same? We go to Dolores’s office and through the fireplace?”

“There is literally no other possibility I can see, and even this doesn’t have a 100% guarantee. The grounds are perfectly secure. 

“What are you looking at?” he asked me. I had my eyes fixed at the window, which he was facing with his back.

“Oh, nothing. Just a bunch of guys in black robes flying on brooms through the impenetrable barrier you were talking about.”


	30. The Destination

“This… this is impossible,” said Snape. “Well, actually…”

“What?” I asked.

“Dumbledore is not here. Maybe the protective spells were taken off by the Ministry and replaced by Umbridge’s. I’m sure they would be less… potent.”

“And these guys are--”

“--Death Eaters, The Dark Lord’s subordinates. It may sound bad--”

“--You don’t say.”

“But it opens up another opportunity. If the Floo powder route isn’t feasible, we will get in the Apparition range and Disapparate somewhere safe.”

“Wow,” I said, “you almost made an invasion of homicidal fascist sound like a good thing. Didn’t expect such positivity from you, Snape.”

“On the other hand, that route will probably be a bloodbath. It’s unlikely we’ll survive.”

“There it is,” I snorted. “They’re getting closer. We should hide.”

And so we did. We sat on the floor, our backs on the wall underneath the window. It was a good instinct because we could hear brooms passing our chamber. When it quieted down I peeked through the window. No one in sight. Then I opened a crack in the door and looked to see whether the fighting had stopped. It seemed to be safe, with no flashing lights.

We took cover under the Cloak and made our way to Dolores’s office. It was surprisingly uneventful, the chamber was only about twenty yards from our hideout and there was no one to oppose us. There were, however, a few bodies, two Aurors, one of them Dawlish, and Sirius Black from the Order’s side. 

“They must have moved somewhere else and continued fighting,” said Snape.

“Hopefully, in a few minutes, it will all go back to normal,” I said reassuringly but then remembered. “Except for Death Eaters. But with the Ministry and the Order, it will be an easy fight, right?”

Snape said nothing. Figures. Then I heard a thunk from behind me. I turned around miraculously Black’s body changed its position, as if he was kicked in the head. I stared at the Potions Professor.

“What?” he shrugged. “I didn’t see him there.”

We arrived at the door and I extended my hand to open it but Snape stopped me and put his eye to the lock and then encouraged me to do the same.

I saw a man with long blonde hair in a black robe surrounded by about a dozen people dressed the same. I put my ear to the hole.

“Find him. And if you see Draco, bring him to me. I’ll finish up here.”

We managed to move out of the way before Death Eaters opened the door. Then we slipped into the room after the last one went out.

The man was standing in the middle of the office, decorative plates broken on the floor and a bundle of fluffy pink lying in the corner. Only after a second I recognized the body of Dolores Jane Umbridge.

“Bombarda!” he shouted, pointing his wand at the fireplace. It blew up and the rabble made it impossible to use it. But, I thought, it’s nothing Reparo couldn’t fix. Then he took a container of Floo powder and said “Incendio”. The powder disintegrated. Then I understood. The Bombarda spell was to keep people out. Burning the Floo powder kept us in.

The Death Eater looked at the body. “Shame,” he sighed. “You would’ve been a great addition to the Ministry.” The man left the room without looking back.

We waited for a while and then took off the Cloak. I crouched next to Dolores’s body, Snape standing beside me.

“I’ve always hated her,” he said, tactfully, as always. “I have no doubt that under normal circumstances, she would’ve joined them. Only your existence made her unwilling to sell the school to Death Eaters.”

I knew that Dolores was a terrible person. It wasn’t just Snape’s… snapeness, she was generally hated by everyone except for the Inquisitorial Squad. And from what I know she hated everyone but me equally, including the Squad. But I couldn’t just ignore the way she behaved towards me. It was artificial, created by the thing Voldemort put in me, but my emotions didn’t care. I tried to hold back tears but some fell on her pink-clad body.

“This means that the Grounds are simply no longer cut off from the rest of the world,” Snape continued, trying to ignore my emotions. “The safest bet is getting to the Quidditch pitch and leaving on brooms. Alternatively, we can find the ones left by the Death Eaters.”

I didn’t answer.

“Ms Sue,” he leaned behind me, I said--”

“--I heard. I’ve had enough. Everything we plan just goes wrong.”

“We have to escape. Right now there are about eight factions fighting in a battle royale, and the only ones not impaired are the Death Eaters. It is imperative for you to leave.”

“I KNOW THAT. But sooner or later something will come between us and the goal and it will all be pointless.“

“WELL, you have nothing to say?” I asked because he didn’t answer me. I turned around and saw that he got even paler than usual. He was looking at his arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“It appears that the Dark Lord himself joined the raiding party. And he wants to talk to me.”


	31. Into the Snake’s Lair

“Wants to talk to you?” I asked. “What about? How do you know? And are you going to?”

“Yes, I don’t know, because of the Dark Mark on my arm, I am.”

“Why?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Because,” he answered, “the circumstances are terrible. We need people on the inside more than ever. And I am one of the most trusted people by the Dark Lord.”

“You’re not... scared of him?”

“I am, terribly so. Which, paradoxically, makes me a good spy. The Dark Lord isn’t fond of people who are not afraid of him.”

I couldn’t believe it. Snape was going to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Seemed out of character to me. But he was right, this is exactly what made him perfect for the job.

“Fine, but I’m going with you,” I said with a commanding voice.

“What?” he was very surprised. “Why?”

“Well, I want to give Voldemort a piece of my mind.”

“It’s going to end badly. Miss Sue--”

“No, no ‘Miss Sue’! I’ve had enough. I’m going to face him and I won’t take any arguments!”

“He’ll murder you.”

“I’ll take the Cloak. I’ll get in with you, listen to him for a bit, and decide what to do.”

“What are the options?” he sneered.

“One: I’ll kill him from under the Cloak and we will fight the rest of them; Two: I’ll face him and give him a piece of my mind-- Let me finish,” I said because I saw he wanted to say something. “Three: I will make a strategic retreat.”

“Let’s go with number three but without you coming to the den of wolves and getting yourself killed.”

I saw that I wouldn’t convince him to go with my plan. I kind of regretted he wasn’t affected by the curse, but only for a moment. I had to give up. Or at least make him think I was giving up.

“Fine. And I’m just supposed to stay here with a corpse and wait for you?”

“I suppose it would be better if you went looking for brooms and we met near the Quidditch pitch. It would be faster.”

“Sure. I’ll wait a few minutes and go do that,” I said.

He nodded and exited the room. I didn’t wait long after he left. I put on the Cloak and slowly opened the door. I saw Snape’s back in the distance. After quietly closing the door, I followed him, coming nearer and nearer to him.

He was going down. I quickly recognized his destination was the Great Hall.

We got there without any major problems. There were a few students running around and casting spells at one another. Snape wasn’t even slowing down. He was using Petrificus Totalus and leaving them where they were. 

Then we came to the doors of the Great Hall which were guarded by four of Voldemort’s minions.

“The Dark Lord is awaiting me,” he said to one of the Death Eaters.

“We know,” he answered. “Enjoying the chaos, Snape?”

“Not particularly. But a lot of Gryffindors are dead, so I cannot complain. I can, however, complain about not being informed.”

“The Dark Lord decided not to tell you. We didn’t ask for his reasoning.”

“So I’ll just have to ask him myself.”

The men opened the door and stood by its wings. Snape entered the Great Hall and me, Cloaked, right behind him.

“Ms Sue,” he murmured. “I know you’re here. Stay away from him and don’t do anything stupid.”

I nodded, which didn’t really do anything to reassure him, and I actually was planning on doing something stupid (I didn’t think it was at the time), so it didn’t really matter.

When we came closer, on the teacher’s podium I saw the person who took me against my will, brainwashed me, and made me indirectly kill my friends. Lord Voldemort was somehow even uglier in person than in my memory.


End file.
